The wins are there

…only when you look for them.

I’m indulging myself in a little break from Warrior Weekly, I find they help ease the load from time to time and keep my enjoyment levels of sharing them with you high. I’m on holiday next weekend and the weekend after so I’ll return to them in October.

It feels good to give myself permission to have a little time off. What would it feel good to give yourself a little permission to have a little time off from?

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I’ve been reviewing each month, each menstrual cycle, each set of attacks for the last few years.

A monthly update, any insights gleaned, how I’m feeling and what I want to create for the month ahead.

I know and fully appreciate so many of us struggle to find gratitude amongst the pit of despair and desolation that an increasing number of us find ourselves in. “You should be grateful” is becoming the same as “have you drank enough water?”.

And as you know I so often do, I wonder at the correlation between meeting myself where I was at first and then finding the door being opened to incorporating a gratitude practice (a practice which took me 2.5 years to build in to my day and as much as I feel so much of it much more frequently, there are still plenty of days where I disconnect).

Anyway, I’ve gone off on a bit of a tangent there because I’m here to talk about the wins. They’re not quite the same as what I’m feeling grateful for. And they took longer to build into my monthly practice because I only really began to see they were there several months into carrying out my own new style of monthly review (after tracking migraine attacks and how I was feeling on a calendar in the year or 2 before that).

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

There was a time that year when I recognised that I was the only one cheerleading myself on. Celebrating the teeniest tiniest of victories. I realised one day that what I was winning at wasn’t seen as winning today (I’m still a huge advocate for celebrating getting out of bed on the days we are able to. Meanwhile society is forever celebrating the next big event, the next milestone, as if the moment we are in isn’t enough).

It was the first time in 3 years of feeling cast aside by society, as if slung on to a scrap heap with all the other chronic illness warriors, that I started to become comfortable with this. This new way of being this new way of seeing.

I haven’t sat down and done as much of a migraine attack review as I did last week for a long while. (Here’s an example of one I’ve shared with you in the past)

In doing so, given I found this one particularly challenging, one of the highlights to doing it was that it helped me reconnect with my needs:

1. To meet myself where I’m at

2. Emotional support: kindness, love and compassion

3. To make space for myself, starting with my early morning routine which has fallen by the wayside and I’ve found really tough to admit to myself and do something about.

It was a challenging practice, not least because it was amidst a particularly challenging time I have found myself caught up in. But one that came with great reward and insight nonetheless.

I also haven’t written a celebration list in a while, which reminded me that ‘the wins are there only when you look for them’. These wins – an accumulation of 6+ years worth of healing, growth and integration – were massive this time round:

• Even though I found it tough, challenging, difficult, I was doing the work anyway (affirmations, chronic pain meditation, breathwork)

• There was no clenching in my jaws or teeth grinding. A tiny bit of tension, that was it.

• I could breathe openly throughout the attack.

• The chronic pain mediation took me to the root showing me that the belief I was harbouring on to was that “I am not good enough”

• Was able to welcome in the pain as a part of me needing my attention (vs turning my back on it, wishing it were different, ignoring it or numbing out).

• So much more presence and awareness throughout the whole ordeal.

• I’m now at the lower end of the pain and symptom scale, experiencing a little hike. The last time I experienced a hike in pain and symptoms I was at the higher end of the pain scale – this was the last time I ever experienced pain to that extent. Perhaps this will be the last hike I experience? (I certainly haven’t ever experienced any downturn in pain in the previous 2+ decades, this is a massive win to celebrate).

• 3 days physically not feeling so great – this is down from over a week’s severe illness per attack.

• I can eat, drink, speak during attack if I wanted/needed to. I couldn’t achieve this up until the last 2 years.

At the end I burned the piece of paper in my chimenea, a practice I began a few years ago and one I have recently only again returned to.

Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash

The words to a poem I wrote this year filtered through my mind

“I’m here

I’ve done it

I’ve stayed true to me

Not lost myself in the ocean

Treading water out at sea”

So I read the entire poem out loud as I burned the paper. In honour and celebration of just how far I’ve come and when I reflect from where I started from.

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How do you feel about monthly reviews?

What’s on your celebration list? Do you find you have to meet yourself where you’re at first before you can even begin to think about wins and gratitude?

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