As I slowly emerge from the depths of sickness, sounds a little dramatic I know but honestly for someone that doesn’t succumb to the common cold, flu or any other typically human virus often, it really threw me. The first two days were spent moving between my bed & a bath, curtains drawn, darkness where possible because light exposure intensified my already shocking headache. I had zero capacity to listen to a book, podcast, watch a show & revel in some productive rest, I had to actually rest. Like stop. FULL STOP.
As I write this it’s day 5, I am feeling much better thanks to our family naturopath Katie who prepared a kit of natural remedies to be collected by my inlaws, included were golden seal (nature’s antibiotic) high vitamin C caps, Mushroom caps & some specially concocted herbs for lung health because quite honestly it felt like someone had a blow torch to them! The last time I was this sick, I left everything too long & had a severely infected strep throat situation which required days of antibiotics & steroids. I learnt my lesson the hard way.
Anyway I digress, I am not writing to tell you my sick story, we all have them but rather the reflections that unfolded as a result. You can always rely on a good ‘feel sorry for yourself’ moment to reflect on areas of your life, especially health. I remember years ago, as I was pregnant with my first baby a friend said to me,
“Mothers are like the Titanic, when she goes down, she takes everyone with her.’ We are quite literally the thread that keeps the family together, and yet this was the first time I felt this to be untrue within the walls of our own home. Looking back I have spent many of my mothering years pushing through the exhaustion, depletion, insomnia, HG & other pregnancy related illnesses alone. No sick days, no opportunity to sleep all day, take candle lit baths, be nourished & left to rest & yet this time I did exactly that & what’s better, I did so without guilt.
Once upon a time I would never have taken this time, especially with my inlaws living with me. I mean what would they think? I’m the woman, the mother, we just carry on, that’s what we do. I must be lazy, pathetic, lying, exaggerating…. These are the stories that would consume my mind, so I would go, and go, and go, ALWAYS at the cost of my own health & wellbeing.
Whilst I’m sure they never think any of those things, I have had to learn the hard way to prioritize my health over the opinions & expectations of others, myself included. Sure sometimes I still feel the need to over explain myself as a way of justifying my actions or in this case, lack thereof (it’s a habit i’m working on breaking) but i’ve come to realise these past few days I am far more at ease with the act of receiving than I ever have been.
Receiving help, receiving nourishment, receiving support, receiving rest.
But none of this would be possible had I not asked for it either, had I not acknowledged that I needed this & more importantly that I was worthy of this. After all I was asking nothing of others that I myself would not do for them, I wasn’t asking to be waited on hand & foot, I simply needed time, I needed to sleep, I needed to NOT be needed by anything or anyone for a short period of time & yes the occasional meal was an absolute bonus & very well received (Steve made congee – so soothing when sick) Yet we as mothers seem to think we are asking for so much, when in reality we are simply asking for the time & space to give back to ourselves what we so freely give to everyone else. And guess what happens when she is gifted this time, she doesn’t take everyone down with her, everyone around her keeps her from sinking.
This was my first reflection, my second was around health itself. I know I’m not alone in saying this, I have never thought about death more in my life than when I became a mother. I think of me dying, my boys dying, my husband dying, everyone but me dying, us of all dying. I have honestly near killed everyone off in every which way in my overthinking, over anxious mind. So this got me thinking, what If I did get sick, like life threatening sick, what would I change right now & why am I not making those changes? I heard this quote years ago but today it landed a little differently.
‘Everything is super important until you are sick. Then you realise there was only ever one thing, ever truly important. Your health. But nonetheless, we borrow from the bank of our health, taking loans on stress & sleepless nights to pay for something that doesn’t really matter.” – Unknown.
I spent the 3rd day glued to the couch, re-watching documentaries I had seen years ago about health & wellbeing, asking myself what have I really done with that information? I’ve consumed it, I’ve absorbed it but had I at any stage over the years embodied it? Because here’s the thing, we don’t ever truly know anything unless we live it & more often than not we will, myself included, often justify all the reasons why we ‘don’t’ do the things we know we should be doing because we would rather live a life of false comfort than experience moments of challenge. The reality is, it’s hard either way, lying to yourself about the choices you make. HARD. Creating change, breaking habits, patterns, programs & behaviors for the life you want. HARD.
We get to choose our version of HARD.
So I will ask you the same question I’ve been asking myself these last couple days, what do you need to do in order to be the woman you say you want to be?
We all like to take the parts from anything that causes the least inner conflict, we like to feed our own narratives, stories, identities, often with false information in order to remain connected to a sense of self that may not even be true anymore. We like to justify all the reasons why we don’t fully embody all that we know, allowing it to take up mental, physical, emotional, energetic space in our body. The body can only hold so much.
With this in mind I’ve made some personal commitments to myself, had some real conversations & called out my own bullshit because change requires change and I really don’t want that change to come from sources outside of myself. I don’t want to wait for the one life changing moment, sickness, death, (fill in the blank) until I learn to fully embody what it means to live healthy within my own skin.
I’ve been to the point of burnout & beyond, I know what it feels like to live & linger there for years in the pursuit of ‘more.’ I vowed never to go back there, just as I vowed never to go back into the depths of depression whereby suicide was the only way out. Just as I vow now, another version of me has been activated & she’s ready to be born. Watch this space.
My third reflection, though I consider this to be more of an ongoing inner dialgue that plagues my mind. How easy it is for us to occupy ourselves, turn a blind eye & again justify the often cruel dualities of life. We are a powerful species, unfortunately much of this power is used for more harm than good in the name of profit. Animals raised purely for slaughter, countries starve whilst others waste what could end world hunger in a matter of months, children are being bought & used for slavery of all kinds. We all know of these things, we all in some way contrinbute to this madness, we are all to blame.
Contribution is one of my main core values, I love to give & be of service to my community in anyway that I can but I can do more. We can all do more. In all areas of our life & no this isn’t about succumbing to hustle culture, this isn’t about starving yourself to feed others, this isn’t about giving from an empty cup. But it is about being honest with yourself first & foremost, it is about calling out your own BS because you are not ever truly of service if you are not giving the best version of yourself. So many of us give the parts that we think others will like, we try to make ourselves pallatable, we keep ourselves small. There is a world out there that needs all of you, needs all of me, needs all of us. A world that needs our voice, our activism, our opinion, our creations, our whole self.
My final reflection, no matter how much I love the work I do, no matter how important I beleive it to be. There is nothing & noone that is more important, that matters more than those I love. It’s so easy to think our purpose lyes beyond this season of our life, our purpose extends beyond the walls of our own home. Yet it is here, here where we have the biggest influence, here we create the most change, here we use our voice for all that is possible in the world, everything begins here. How we heal ourselves begins here, how we shape the next generation begins here, it’s here we need to love, live & lead by example because it’s here that others are truly watching.
xx Charlie xx
