All parts of me
Two whopping great health-related compliments inspired me to sit with what it took to reach this level of acceptance and guilt-free living. Pain 'n' all.
In the last week or so, I’ve experienced a couple of relatively small migraine attacks. One on Friday just before my period started and one on Monday just as my period came.
I was letting a friend know in a voice note that I felt sh*t, explaining that I was in the midst of a second attack. How it wasn’t that bad but because of it following a recent attack it’s something that then starts to affect me mentally. That it was what it was and in the grand scheme of things it was extreeeeemely mild for what I was previously living with. Acknowledging the fact that the pain I was experiencing was still painful. Saying how thankful I was for the fact that I was no longer experiencing what I used to. How trying to meet this pain and be with it where it is and where I am at can be difficult. Proposing that I would do some more inner work to explore how I was really feeling.
“Do you know what I love most about you?” she replied.
“Is that you refuse to feel guilt for your illness and the pain you feel. That you accept that it is part of you at this moment…
…it would be so easy to hide and shrink yourself down, but you don’t. I absolutely love how you still embrace each day as new and bright and full of potential.”
I’ve been working with the word “receive” over the latter part of this year. Practicing receiving compliments being a big part of that work. I don’t yet recall receiving any compliments on how I manage and approach my illness and the pain I’ve been living with all this time.
These felt like two mighty big compliments. So, I did what I’ve been doing with compliments I receive on my writing, and I wrote them down at the back of my journal.
Writing these two compliments down got me asking myself the question “how did I come to achieve this?”.
Not feeling guilt for being ill and being able to accept how unwell I am isn’t something that’s come easily to me. It isn’t something that’s happened overnight. Accepting that it is part of me and that I must adapt my days, weeks and life around how I feel and what’s been going on for me, to the extent that it has, has been gruelling. Showing up and being seen has been incredibly tough, incredibly challenging – and more so around my period than at any other time.
I sat with this question for a bit and here’s what came up for me.
1. After losing my career, my income and my health, I set out to retrain so that I could work around illness. Unbeknown to me at the time, I created a life that not only enabled me to work around my illness, but once my health improved to such an extent that I actually enjoyed some wellness, I have come to see that I get to work AND live around my illness because of making this kind of change.
2. As everything around me was stripped away (career, income, relationships, home etc), I recognised I had needs. Needs that were not being met. Needs that were essential not only to my existence but to my health. I identified what they were and put in place measures to support them. I overcame the many challenges that came with this and saw to it that these needs started to be met. I talk more about my needs and what they were, how I identified them and went about putting in place support to meet them over in another blog, Invisible me - by Amber Horrox - Warrior Within (substack.com)
3. I plan around my illness. At a time where I was completely disabled by illness, this meant making no plans at all. This meant not going out and declining all invites as part of my commitment to getting well. Once I made this decision and realised it was something that I had to do, for the benefit of my health, it wasn’t such a tough call to say no to everyone because it was a blanket response, and I was ill so much of the time. At the 3–4-year point where I spent, say 50% of my time well and saw this increase to 75%, I found this more challenging. I think because it meant saying yes to some things and no to others. Fear of letting others down and fear of missing out was playing a big part.
In the last 12 months especially, I’ve learned to plan around my menstrual cycle because this is where I find myself at peak risk of attack. For a long time, I was very unwell for 2.5 weeks each month because of menstrual migraine, 6 days of which I was bedbound and the rest of the time not much better off. I now have a ten-day window where I experience a handful of days where I am not well, and I need complete rest on the other days. All in order to avoid being very unwell and so that the pain that I am experiencing isn’t severe or agonising. Though the payoffs have been big, I can find the amount of rest I have to have just to avoid this incredibly frustrating.
Some examples of where I’ve had to say no, make a change and rearrange plans this week include:
Rearranging a treatment with a regular client from Monday to Tuesday.
Letting the accountability team I’m in for the Write That Book Masterclass know that I couldn’t attend our group catch-up.
Delaying a couple of appointments with friends and non-urgent business.
Previously, I would have said yes to everything and not even bothered to check in what was going on for me, how I was feeling or what might be the best decision to make. Before chronic illness took hold, my health didn’t factor in any decisions I made at all whatsoever.
4. Letting others know I have a ten-day window where I’m at peak risk of attack. My illness and my wellness have become a normal part of conversation. This has helped tremendously with saying no and planning around my health and menstrual cycle. This has also helped others to think about their own health, wellbeing and priorities too.
5. Being “ok” with just feeling “ok”.
Coming up to a couple of years ago, I started to see being ok as a good thing. Feeling ok was good enough. I realised that mostly I felt ok and that sometimes I even felt good (outside of the days where I was very unwell). This realisation and acknowledgment opened up the door to more good days. I started to experience more joy in my days. It gave me more reasons to be grateful. Which gave my nightly gratitude practice a big boost before bed each night.
Now I have some days where I feel ok, some not so good days and most days I feel pretty good.
6. All masks are off and I tell others (clients as well as friends) how I really feel. This started by telling people in my life that mostly I am ok and that some days I even felt good. If I’m tired, I’ll say I’m tired. If I feel low/down/depressed, I’ll let others know this is where I’m at in this moment. I do the same when I’m well, happy, sad, confused, grateful, playful and joyful. This week I have connected with a lot of upset in for the form of grief. I’ve been sharing this with others and asking them how they feel.
Accepting how I feel has been difficult. I didn’t even know how I felt at any given moment on any given day. None of the work I’ve been doing has been easy. Nor has it been recognised as work. It isn’t yet known on a wider scale that this is what it’s taken to get as well as I have. But despite what I have come up against in myself, from others and society as a whole, I have continued anyway.
Back in May, I wrote a letter to my body after being inspired by a client friend who shared one she had written on her Instagram account @melanieswindon_pt that might highlight to you the struggle I have experienced.
Dear body,
This morning I am struggling with self-acceptance. To accept where you are at and how you feel.
I know you feel done in, down, tired, meh. I now realise that this is what makes you whole, makes you human.
Somewhere along the way, I received the message that you are unlovable if you tired, that you are not worthy of my time or energy.
These are patterns and layers that I am trying to unpeel.
I know that when I peel back this one, it will reveal a brighter, lighter, sparkly energy.
Please be patient with me as I unlearn old ways of being and relearn new ways of being.
I’m trying my best.
Amber xx
I’ve struggled so much with acceptance – particularly as my health improved so much that I tipped the balance of being well more often than I wasn’t and the severe and agonising pain that I had been living with for many years was no longer as extreme. So much so, that for a time, it actually felt easier to be bed-bound ill than it was to rest, rest and more rest, say no again and again and again. Making the changes I’ve had to make in my life to get this well has gone against anything I’ve ever been taught and shown.
Take for example, the upset and grief I’ve felt this week. I didn’t even know this was how I felt until I did a love and acceptance inner child meditation in the middle of the night on Sunday when I couldn’t sleep. I then didn’t connect with these feelings fully until Tuesday night. My mind was a whir with what I might be grieving. I realised noone had ever shown me how to grieve. Noone has ever modelled what to do with grief. How does one move through it without suppressing it? How am I supposed to feel it without putting a label on it? Come Friday, I had disconnected with it again. Favouring being glued to my phone and eating a lot more food than I normally would.
It's taken me a long time to reach this level of acceptance. To overeat without feeling guilt. To admit to others (and myself)
how I really feel. A lot of work behind the scenes. Unseen. Unheard. Unrecognised. That is, until now.
Such a beautiful share - I love reading about your journey 💖