How I’m Going to do More Yoga and Live a Better Life Part 5

Greetings

Hi, I hope you are all well. I’ve been a little bit quiet online lately. So I thought I might make a quick update to let you know what’s happening. A few weeks ago, I unexpectedly separated from my partner of 8 years. I say unexpectedly because it all blew up very quickly; however, there were undoubtedly signs and I wasn’t entirely surprised by the outcome. So it is what it is. Going through this, my head has been all over the place, and I permitted myself to put work aside for a few weeks until I felt better. The fact that I’m ready to talk about this now probably suggests that I’m starting to feel better, so I think now I’ll start picking up the threads of my business again and get back to work on writing and publishing and all that stuff.

Challenge=Opportunity

I’m a firm believer in the idea that every challenge comes with opportunities, and I embrace the opportunities that this challenge brings. I have a chance now to focus 100% on

• Myself
• My health needs
• What I want to accomplish with my business
• What I want to achieve with my life

And I can now do all of these without being accountable to anyone for how I choose to spend my time. That is liberating!

Free time is the bomb!

I think as a person living with chronic illness as I do, it’s extra liberating. One of the challenges of chronic illness is rationing your time. Rationing to all the people and all the commitments that need your time. There is undoubtedly an element of relief in having one less person to whom I’m obligated to ration my time. That sounds mean, but it’s what it is.

Do More Yoga and Live a Better Life

If you follow my blog at all, you will know I’ve spent some time on a series called How I’m Going to do More Yoga and Live a Better Life. That’s what I want to do in this next phase – live a better life. It’s my personal code for self-care and looking after myself. Yes, that definitely involves yoga and meditation and eating healthy. Positive health habits are important to maintain when you live with chronic illness. The best thing you can do for yourself is to “be healthy”, so that’s a big focus.

Voc Rehab. Yes!

Coincidentally something that happened quite recently, which was just super perfect timing:  I’ve been accessing income protection insurance payments for a while since I’ve been unable to work full-time.  Since I went off work, I’ve been asking if I can get some vocational rehab because I hate not working! Being creative and productive and all of those things is such an enormous part of my self-esteem. It frustrates me immensely not to do those things. So day one of saying I’m not well enough to work full-time anymore, I’m like, “give me some rehab, find me something to do!”. It’s been a bit of a fight, but I finally got that moving.

Even More Yoga

I have been able to have had my first meeting with a rehab provider. It sounds promising. We will be doing some stuff just around general health – do more yoga and living a better life. One of the opportunities in the separation is that I now have a big room without a purpose. I think it’s going to become a yoga and meditation studio. Why not? I just turned 50, and I’m going to do whatever I like! So that’s very exciting. The other exciting thing that I’m looking forward to is that this rehab provider has a small business coaching and mentoring program.

 What do I Need?

There’s so many of them out there, and they’re excellent services. I have been accessing them, but this one targets people with chronic illness. Leanne (the lady I spoke to) explained this to me, and I seriously started to cry. She’s like: “What? What is it? Is this is not what you want?” I said, “this is exactly what I want. This is perfect. It’s what I have been trying to do on my own for the last 12 months”. I think that at that moment, I thought, “I know what to do. I’m a very experienced manager. I know how to run a business. I know how to plan and execute. I’ve got all that stuff, but I still have the mindset of a healthy person. So when I’m accessing generic services, I’m still looking at everything from the mindset of a healthy person. I’m holding myself to that yardstick of what is reasonable, and I’m thinking about what is appropriate for a healthy person. And that’s not it for me.

What if you are not well?

The relief of thinking about talking to somebody about how to structure my business and approach my work in a way that would be reasonable for my health – wow! I just cannot explain it. It was amazing. I’m looking forward to this happening. The timing was perfect, and this is absolutely where I need to start: dropping some more supports into my life. Having said that, I have heaps of support. I have a fabulous family, fabulous friends, a brilliant GP, and I’ve been setting up some counselling for myself. I’m fine. I’m not worried. I’m not concerned about my mental health in the long term. I’m going to be okay. So also just thinking about more yoga, better life, all that sort of thing;  there is one unexpected upside that I’ve experienced.

Reprieve

With my migraine attacks, there has always been something that happens when I’ve got something important to do. I have an adrenaline surge, which seems to hold the migraine attack off. It has been about three weeks since the separation. A couple of days after we separated, I managed to get myself into the hospital for an infusion treatment which is also really good for resetting the pain cycle. I think I’ve had maybe three migraine days where I was fully disabled in the last three weeks. I’ve had symptoms on and off in between, but they are just annoying. They’re not disabling. And that is crazy. I can’t even begin to dream about when I last felt so well. So I’m fully expecting that this adrenaline that is fuelling me, this anxiety, this emotional state at some point is going to run out. I’m going to crash, and I’ll probably have a horrible long and painful migraine, and then I’ll probably get back to something like the pattern that I was in before this is also okay.

Food Glorious Food

What I have right now is a massive opportunity. I’ve been using that to do a lot of meal prep. I’ve got my freezer filled up with healthy keto food that I’ve cooked myself. It’s got lots of veggies in it and so that when my health does tank again, I’m well-prepped to make sure that I keep eating well. I’m working hard to get the house sorted out and on top of everything; getting all my services back – cleaner, gardener or whatever. All the things that I need to keep going by myself unless you’ve been getting all that back in place. So hopefully, when the time does come that the migraine becomes challenging again, I’ll have sound, solid systems in place, and I’ll be able to manage my life effectively. I’ll be able to use my productive time for good, meaningful work and go out and enjoy myself.

50 and Fabulous

Because, you know, if you’re going to be 50 and single, you might as well be fabulous. This is my plan.