This week my meditation has been about working on The Basics. What I learned today touches on what I was writing about yesterday. Yesterday I wrote about self-appreciation and self-care. In my focus on the basics this past week, a lot of what I read was about taking care of oneself being a basic step to growing, changing, and moving forward with life.
The first 6 months of my journey overcoming suppressed grief was spent doing an inordinate amount of sleeping. For the first three months, I spent 10 hours a day in one chair, sleeping on and off, and then going to bed at 10 pm and sleeping until 6 am. I would get up, go to yoga, and by noontime climb back into the chair til 10 pm at night. My only two goals each day were to drag myself out of the chair to wash my yoga clothes and to try not to go to bed before 10 pm. The next thee months I made myself move out of the chair at 3 pm for a walk, and gradually added a small afternoon exercise routine, but by 6 pm I was back in the chair exhausted. Months 7,8, & 9 I added running and increased the exercise time to 90 minutes, after which I stayed active until early evening.
During this whole time period I was very concerned with the extreme fatigue. It scared me. I was so glad to see it begin to get better. In months 10, and now 11, I am 95% back to my normal activity level of one year ago. I have even reached the point where I actually don’t even want a cat nap after lunch on most days. But on the days I need it, I listen to my body and I do it. It is only now I can look back on the progression and realize the extreme fatigue was actually my body shutting itself down to protect itself during the healing process. This was my own observation and conclusion.
Today I was relieved to find this stated in my meditation:
“Remember if you’re going through a time of deep grief or intense change, you may need more sleep than usual.”
I was overjoyed to read that I was not off-base in my thinking. My journey isn’t quite complete yet, and I still have a few days where after yoga I’m totally spent. Knowing that this is a normal part of putting the last few pieces of myself back in place, gives me great relief.
At the end of the third month, on the first warm day of spring, I’ll never forget the day that I became aware of self-care. I was driving back from yoga, the sun was warm in the car, I was at the end of my rope, so deep in pain, and I stopped at a stoplight. I looked up at the blue sky and just said, “God, today, just take care of me.” That was the day I got out of the chair for the first time at 3 pm and just went and sat out on the patio. I looked up once again at the sky and decided tomorrow I’ll walk down the road. And those were my first steps to recovery.
I will never forget that day. It will always stand to remind me to stop and take care of my most basic needs – both physical and mental. Alongside good food, sleep, and exercise, stands admitting what I went through, facing fears and insecurities head on and talking about them to people that really matter.
And so, as another day goes by, the listening goes on…..this week has been about listening to my body and respecting the things it asks for, and ….I have written.
Yoga poses are good exercise and can help loosen up the tense muscles in your body. The areas of the body that tend to carry the most stress are the neck, shoulders, and back. But other parts of the body (like the face, jaw, fingers, or wrists) also can benefit from simple yoga stretches.