On slowing down
The struggle is real
Part 1 of 3.
In 2021 I shared with my audience on an Instagram post about my challenge with slowing down. Admitting this out loud made me feel physically sick.
At this time, I had no idea that this was one of the greatest challenges faced by so many of us.
I’ve had in the back of my mind to write a full post on this for over a year and even been asked by reader
to share my insight and reflections on rest; when to rest, when not to rest, how much rest to take, how the hell do we know!?!Hearing
podcast with the other week (I’m big fans of both) deeply inspired me to put pen to paper for this one.Like with anything, there seem to be so many rules around rest, what it is and what it looks like. We could look at the dictionary definition and we could work with the idea that deep rest isn’t reading, isn’t this, isn’t that (we could, we could, we could…) but tbh that’s not the line I’m going to take with this. I’m gonna spill a load of my experience out and what the journey to slowing the fuck down has looked like to me. (I’ve wanted to write a book with the title “Slow the Fuck Down” for so long now but post processing the enormity of what I’ve endured and lived through, I’m not sure that one will materialise!)
What strikes me with arguably my darkest and bleakest days back in 2018 (there were so many that precede that year that its sometimes conflicting to say this was the worst year of my life because in other ways it was also the changemaker) is that once I’d identified my needs (1. support and 2. to find a way to generate an income to keep a roof over my head), I gave myself 3 months off.
The support I had in place that was just enough to keep me alive (counselling therapy) was where I realised I’d never taken a work break since I first started work back in 1991. I gave myself 3 months off from the world, 3 months off from the worry of having to find ways to work in my now disabled state.
Admittedly, there was a huge part of me that thought I would be well by September. (I overrode the signs that told me I wouldn’t.)
As soon as September came, I told myself “Right, that’s it. Enough of this rest, it’s time to go back to work”. Now I look back I can see that I retrained (which, fortunately was in alignment for me and what I wanted to do and enjoyed doing as well as simultaneously helping me get to where I wanted to be; well, eventually) and applied the same pressure to work, produce and generate as much as I had in the before days.
I’d skilfully mastered the art of releasing any pressure around all other changes, especially when it came to dietary changes and wellness practices (in the main).
I wasn’t much into the habit of seeking out the wins back then, sitting down to reflect on my months and most certainly had not got into the habit of slowing down. I didn’t know at this stage that this would form part of my future wellness. Or that there were even greater challenges to come (stopping altogether – but out of choice and not through force).
In brief, what did those 3 months off look like for me?
Month 1: I couldn’t accept the invite my friend made to take me to the spa and treat me to lunch. I was at my very worst. I made massive decisions based around what I couldn’t do and quit binge drinking alcohol and caffeine for good. I leant into the knowing that I would never be able to return to the corporate world. I intentionally told no one of this decision so that I didn’t have to hear the doom and gloom about not having a career or a salary. I already knew the repercussions, I needed to ease the almighty pressure on myself. I needed solutions. I simultaneously woke up newfound belief “I matter. My health matters”.
Month 2: I’d received confirmation that the NHS could not help me meet my needs and that NOONE was coming to my rescue. As brutal as this was at the time, it freed up some space that I wasn’t even aware of back then. It meant I could align with my priorities, my health and my solo mortgage payments. I opened to the possibility of cutting gluten out of my diet and began to throw cleaner food in my trolley. All without making any drastic dietary changes and decisions (I hadn’t done the research and the medical advice I received was not to bother making any).
Month 3: I was still experiencing 2 attacks a week. Stage 2 of the attack lasted 72 hours and I did not know at this stage that each attack was lasting over a week each, each one overlapping the other. The only knowing I had at the time was that I was unable to recover before the next attack was in full force. It was this month that the pain element of attack had reduced from the near highest end of the scale for the entire duration to just moderate (probably higher) to severe. But the biggest most welcome change was that the pain – for the first time in 20 years – was ON/OFF !!!!!!!!!! Over those 72 hours, I would experience pain to a lower severity and it would come and go! This was an all-time first for me.
Once I’d taken back the reigns of creation for my health around month 2, I stopped taking the medication on the basis that my body had been telling me “No. No. No.” Unfortunately, somewhere amid retraining and piling on the pressure to work, produce, generate, I handed the reigns back to fear momentarily and began to take the medication again. I’d processed enough to keep going, had tapped into a strength I never knew existed to stay in my power in so many ways I am immensely proud of myself, but I hadn’t fully adjusted perfectly. Tbh the perfectly imperfect approach is a wellness practice I fully adopted in 2020 and I am a huge advocate of promoting perfectly imperfect healing, growth and integration. Therefore, this can highlight one of many ways where not only I didn’t get it quite right (with most usually having big payoffs to this approach), this is one example where not getting it quite right had huge ramifications for me.
Incidentally, I feel a lot of grief in typing this, a lot of emotion that wants to rise and bubble to the surface. Only one of my wellness practices that I haven’t yet been able to master, and I’ve had to put on the side-lines for the majority of these years (unless on rare occasions where its uncontrollable) is crying. I didn’t even know grief was what I felt during these times until I saw fellow chronic illness warriors writing about it. And now I understand what it is, I can feel it and I can (finally) know that that is what I am feeling.
Grief for the loss of the before times. Grief for the loss of my career. Grief for the loss of salaried income and benefits and knowing that my mortgage could be paid. Grief for the disconnect of what was known (irrespective of whether it was serving me or not). Grief for the loss of a prior relationship. Grief for the loss of support I once had in my life that I couldn’t fully lean in to and now here I was, left with not nearly enough to enable me to function sustainably, never mind move forward.
It was only when it came to writing my book, Migraine and Me (3 years in, I’ve set the goal to have this published before Christmas), that I came to realise one almighty great big insight that I’d missed. Thanks to my journaling wellness practice, I was recording insights long before I became consciously aware that this was what I was doing. As a result, I don’t feel like I’ve missed too many along the way.
The magnitude of this missed insight hit me to the core (like a punch in the stomach). I became so deeply triggered by it that I was unable to return to writing my memoir for an entire year. I immediately resonated with this one being for the sole benefit of readers to learn from, but this didn’t help the blow. I am the one who has suffered greatly as a result. Perhaps this is why this piece has taken me so long to write.
Part 2 and 3 of this popular series:
As I approach year ten. This 👇🏼 Thank you.
“Grief for the loss of the before times. Grief for the loss of my career. Grief for the loss of salaried income and benefits and knowing that my mortgage could be paid. Grief for the disconnect of what was known (irrespective of whether it was serving me or not). Grief for the loss of a prior relationship. Grief for the loss of support I once had in my life that I couldn’t fully lean in to and now here I was, left with not nearly enough to enable me to function sustainably, never mind move forward.
Thank you for sharing your story as it unfolds, Amber. For me, grief is an ever-precent part of illness that doesn't get talked about enough, and I resonate with your sense of being punched by it. If only the language of illness included more ways to talk about this loss. Perhaps we'd find it easier to process.