Changing your perception
I began this week in A+E after it became apparent that my body needed a bit of assistance to heal the wound I self-inflicted whilst washing up a new carving knife on Sunday evening.
The emergency waiting room is a great leveller.
As one lady remarked to me, you can feel yourself getting sicker by the moment, just sitting in this atmosphere. Luckily for me, a minor injury can be treated by a nurse practitioner, so not a lengthy queue to see a doctor. But the lady wailing like an animal in agony at her unbearable migraine and the withdrawn man who booked in with suicidal intentions (most of the waiting room flinched as we overheard the awkward conversation) would have had a considerably longer wait than me.
It saddens me a little returning to my old place of work, and I felt sadder still, to see them so desperately understaffed. Part of letting my dietetic career go was grieving for the NHS I trained in & once felt proud to be part of. Yet I continue to be in total awe of those who haven’t lost faith and continue to put their patients first.
Glued and feeling grateful.
In less than 2 hours I’d been taped back together and had my arm rather ridiculously in a sling (to help the clotting apparently). Which meant I couldn’t use my right hand that day.
“Great, just what I need after losing the first half of the morning, more delays to getting my presentation written…”
and then I caught myself, noticed my breathing, the tension in my body. Realising I was in a stress response, catastrophizing and adding additional cortisol to the situation…
I paused to take some conscious breaths.
It doesn’t need to take longer than 4 deep inhales and slow exhales before I can feel the tension ease, my breathing calm and my mind start to clear. Reminding me again of how lucky we all are, as a species, to be able to control our nervous systems in this way.
I took a mindful walk down to the bus stop and called my husband to update him. Mondays, we decided when we first began the business, are ‘our day’. A day primarily to relax, rejuvenate and renew, having realized the need for balance in life. But increasingly Mondays have become more focused on our passion, holistic health & wellbeing, so before you know it you are pretty much working a 5-day week anyway. But not this one.
Getting outside in nature.
The sun shining, we headed East to the breathtaking backdrop of Cuckmere Haven for a walk down to the shoreline to get a glimpse of the Seven Sisters. The light breeze rustling the trees, the sea birds, dogs and excited children soothing me as I walked. I realised in walking in nature, relaxing with my husband, I was completing the stress cycle naturally which had begun with that morning’s A+E experience.
A far healthier way of ‘coping’ with the stressful event than I would’ve deployed previously. That would’ve been a large glass of wine – or 2, for the ‘shock’. I marked 2 years since I stopped drinking last Saturday, without a fanfare or a fuss, because it’s just not a ‘thing’ for me anymore. I’m so grateful that I woke up to realise alcohol was driving a lot of my anxiety and NOT in fact easing it. It’s amazing what journaling and a bit of self-reflection can reveal!
Noticing the shift in my perception.
In seeing the ‘gift’ of the negative experience resulting in a spontaneous date day, I felt glad of the freedom and opportunity I’d had to lift my mood. Although as Andy remarked it shouldn’t take a cut finger for us to head out to recharge our batteries to achieve the balance that we know we benefit from!
If you are interested to learn more about these and other techniques, the science and the bio-hacks our holistic program and I myself use, to begin your own path towards self-healing, then do reach out for a free discovery call.