Progress and Set-Backs

I have been told many times that I’m too hard on myself. I hold myself to high standards and when things go wrong, I do probably attribute blame to myself more than to others. It’s important for people like me to make a point of reflecting on progress and successes. We are in the habit of looking forward, frustrated that we are not further ahead on our path. Looking back often provides a welcome relief to those high standards in the acknowledgement of how much progress has been made.

I went on a longer walk than usual today, mostly to escape the mayhem at home. On my walk I had the realisation that it has only been a few short months since my diagnosis. Only four months have elapsed but it feels like a year to me. I think that’s because there has been so much personal growth. I have found myself being irritated that I didn't have insights earlier than I did, like that I took a while to realise that daily naps are important. But in reality, only a few weeks elapsed before I implemented that regimen. Perhaps all the turmoil of addressing important life issues has left me feeling that I've aged a year in only four months.

Some recent emotional wounds were opened yesterday. Sadly, it does cause me stress and it has taken its toll on my energy levels. Because I don’t feel rested today I’m having a lot of difficulty being at home when the family is here. My girls are driving me crazy and I’m finding myself being overly irritable with them. It is certain that stressful events slow down my recovery and set me back. I’m feeling the need to withdraw to recover. Unfortunately my environment expects me to mediate fights and provide entertainment for small children. Not so aligned to my needs today. The good news is that the girls are close to their father after me spending a weekend away recently, so they are in good hands and happy to be there.

I’m reading a wonderful book on building resilience which I’m hoping will help me bounce back quicker in adversity. I have applied the happiness building techniques learned from books I have read, so I have no doubt that I can improve my resilience as well.  Next time those wounds are opened, I will hopefully be able to reduce the impact on my energy reserves and not let it affect me so much.

I feel that I’m gaining more and more clarity on my career path. I suspect that I’ll receive income from a variety of sources in future. I’m so very grateful for the opportunities that are coming my way. I’m certain that it’s due to being clear on what I enjoy and what I want in my life. Sometimes I feel that the answers are unfolding faster than I can handle.

Looking back over the past four months I have gained an enormous bundle of personal insight and have been able to define a future path for myself that supports my talents. I've been clear in knowing what must disappear from my life and what must enter, in a generalised way. I've been reciting my Best Possible Future Self every day and in so doing, I've put my intentions out there and the clarity is improving with each week that passes.

It’s strange to realise that I've only recently connected with my needs and talents. In my previous role I spent a lot of time doing what I could do and not want I really wanted to do. That has been a key learning for me on this journey in that although I’m good at something, it has no place in my  job function if I don’t enjoy it.

The recovery process takes time and requires patience, both of which are in short supply. But I do have the sense that the next few weeks will see the fruits of my efforts unfolding further. I’m hoping that in a month’s time, I’ll be in remission and well enough to do work that is aligned to my passions and that builds me up.

Recovery is Slow

People ask me quite often if I’m feeling better and it’s a hard question to answer. Recovering from something quite major like Graves’ disease is not the same as the flu. It’s going to take months to go into remission and some people have told me to cater for a year. I took years to get into this poor state of health and to embed the life circumstances that created it. And it will take many months to recover and to unravel my life. It takes focus, discipline and courage to renegotiate and to prioritise yourself.

I’m not sure I’ll ever feel as robust as I have felt earlier in my life but perhaps that’s true of any grown-up. I've always wanted a sabbatical but I dreamed of having the time to do things, learn things, clear out cupboards at home and enhance myself significantly. It’s true I’m on a personal growth path but I have to be quite cautious with anything that drains my energy, given my depleted state. I can’t commit to courses that last four hours because I’m afraid I’ll take days to recover.

There’s no question that recovery is boring. And it’s frustrating that my state of health is not apparent to other people. Sometimes I wonder if people think I’m just pretending. I haven’t lost hair or weight and I’m not covered in purple spots. I can hold a conversation and can go out briefly. I don’t believe in dramatizing my illness so I probably put on a more energetic demeanour for my rare outings. What people don’t see is the impact of overdoing it. They don’t see me having to sleep for a few hours each day in order to just cope with caring for my kids. They don’t see that I actually need recovery time on a Monday after the weekend.

I have times when I think I’m getting better. On Friday I missed my daily nap due to my three-year-old being sick. Expecting to feel exhausted on Saturday morning, I actually woke up before my children. That tells me that perhaps I’m getting enough sleep and I’m starting to recover. But it’s really hard to tell whether that’s true, or just one occurrence that I should not read anything into.

I’m really afraid of regressing as I do struggle to know how well I really am. Looking back, I know that I am much better than I was in November last year. But I also know that I’m not up to a full work day or even a lot of commitments in a week. I have blood tests taken once a month and my doctor has not really even given me timelines on how long this typically takes. I’m doing what I can to rest but how do I know if I should be only sleeping and reading? I’m afraid that by the time my medical leave is over, I might actually not be up to it. Am I wasting my leave by going out for coffee once a week? I also need to solve this underlying problem of my future career passion and that can’t be done at home by myself all day for months on end. I have to talk to people and be around those who care. 

Many of the entrepreneurial articles and personal growth books I’ve read cite the importance of waking up early in order to succeed. Ordinarily I’d love to do that – be up before the family wakes, have a chance to shower in peace, go to the toilet without being followed and perhaps write a bit. Given my state of depletion and how much rest I need, I simply have not been able to do that. 

I so look forward to a time when I can work, I can help people, contribute to the world and still have energy to care for my kids. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to run again. It all feels so far away. I’m tackling my recovery like a project, with my self-care roster and making sure I have alternative healing and a healthy diet. But that could also be a problem. Maybe I’m creating more stress for myself. I just don’t know and there’s no-one who can guide me.

So the answer to the question ‘Are you feeling better?’ right now is ‘I think so but I’ve got a long way to go’.

Keeping the Boredom at Bay

I've been wondering lately why I seem to avoid meditation and my daily nap, despite the fact that they are on my self-care roster as daily activities. There are days when I skip one of both of them. The plain truth is that it’s boring. There’s an opportunity cost in that I’m not learning, growing, advancing towards something. I suppose one could argue that the nap and the meditation speed up my recovery but it just feels boring to think of nothing and to sleep. At the end of each day I like to feel as if I’m closer to a goal or improving myself. But I suppose the reality is that I need a lot of days with nothing but rest in order to restore myself to full health.

And as usual for me, when there’s a problem, I need to find a solution. I’m doing well on my roster in that I’m ticking off the occasional responsibility item such as children dentist trips. But it does get monotonous. And I have read that any happiness-inducing strategy needs to change occasionally if you want to retain its effectiveness. It’s easy to get bored of scheduled acts of kindness and gratitude journaling. So today’s task is to plan for the next month as well as to get started on my book.

As I've mentioned in my post about goals, it’s important to set deadlines and to create sub-goals. I've created a rough outline of chapters for my book and have given myself a month on each chapter and a month to edit. So chapter one is due in a few weeks and it will be something new for me to tackle. As mentioned, one of my focus areas is to find flow activities and writing is certainly one of them. Any flow activity, by definition, needs to include a challenge that is slightly greater than skill, in order to keep your attention and to challenge you. It will be a difficult exercise to structure my ideas into a set of chapters that work well together.

I also realised that I’d like to inject some fun or creativity into my life. I've heard of an online course where you can learn to draw. I've signed up for a women’s retreat in May that should be an opportunity to be creative, meet other people and of course, to escape my children. And I think it’s really positive to be taking a step that puts my well-being first. As I mentioned in my last post, I need to speak up about the things I want to do and not to just let everyone else decide my activities for me.

The organiser is Taryn Harris, who also suffered from a stress-related condition and changed her life as a result. She is really inspiring to me and I’m so looking forward to meeting her and understanding the insights she can share.

A batch of books arrived today which always cheers me up. For a change, they are not related to happiness or self-help but are around rediscovering your creativity. This is just the catalyst I needed to shake things up and find a little optimism in the drudgery of rest. And yes, I will most certainly do my meditation and my nap today.

Wallowing and Wondering

For someone with a naturally optimistic tendency and writing a blog about optimising happiness at work and in your life, I’m off track today. I’m wallowing in misery. As mentioned on the weekend I have a bad cold and am feeling awful. Feeling physically awful also tends to make you feel sorry for yourself. It started me thinking about just how often I catch a cold. During winter it’s about two per month. That means that I’m losing half of every month. With such a weak immune system, I’m likely to pick up every dangerous bug that lurks in the mucous of small children. And it hits me hard.

When kids get sick, their mother has to look after them no matter how near death I feel. I put my self-care on hold (as usual), and scurry around making them juice, giving medication and making them feel loved and comforted. How much I yearn for some matriarch to emerge from a mystical mountain, bossing around my family and telling them I’m not to get out of bed under any circumstances. I’ll call her Panacea, the goddess of Universal remedy in Greek mythology. Panacea, I’m open to anything – just bring it. If the silver bullet is that four letter word ‘Rest’, then just use the bullet for its intended purpose and put me out of my misery.  

I have a feeling some people think I’m just putting it on, or it’s in my head. I’m no stranger to mind over matter. You can’t run almost 90 km in one day and not have a strong mind. The trouble is I have been suppressing what my body has been telling me for so long that I've lost touch. I can’t tell when I’m overdoing it or about to overdo it. I thought I was getting better at that but I don’t trust myself anymore. How can I make any plans? I want to experience things in order to write about them. I want to set up meetings and appointments every day so that I’m stimulated, growing and finding my flow. I've understood that I shouldn't have persevered so long in a job I dislike. I get it. I've understood that I need to find something I love to do, and I've understood that I need a respite during my day. What more do I have to learn? And for how much longer must I recover?

I’m trying to have some fun in my days and evenings but it may even compromise recovery. I’m not sure I can just focus on healing and recovering. Elizabeth Gilbert talks about owning a creative mind being like having a Border Collie for a pet. You need to give it work or it will find its own work and you might not like what it does. How can I be expected to hang around the house, waiting and RESTING. I feel trapped and stuck. I’m unable to hope for and plan for a future when leaving the house is hard.

Yes, I know, it’s temporary and I’ll feel better soon. But some days are just like that and I’m not going to pretend it’s easy. I want to move forward. I want to make progress. I’m reading about gratitude and enjoying the moment, finding flow activities. But how can I do that if I’m feeling so awful? Without your health, life is very difficult. We don’t value it nearly enough until it’s compromised.  

I often don’t want to publish anything when I’m feeling down. I have a tendency to wait until I’m feeling better again, edit and publish, of course with a positive ending. But that’s not so honest. We all have days where we just feel stuck. I’m impatient,  I want to get on with my life. When will I be able to go out and see clients all day and have enough energy to play with my kids? Is that so unrealistic?