The Scores Are In!

and I'm not winning... Or am I?

I’m sure everyone in this space is familiar with the phrase, ‘the body keeps the score’. My body has gone a few steps further in recent years. I’m not sure how far back it began trying to subtly communicate the score to me. I do know that in 2018; presumably flat out of ideas of how to get my attention with subtle indications that all was not well, my body resorted to a ‘Sky Sports’ style running commentary, complete with rolling banner and flashing headlines. Since my burnout at the end of 2021, it has settled for somewhere in between to draw some focus, like an irritating message notification that cannot be silenced.

It is Friday night as I begin this piece; sitting at my laptop with a wastebin full of used tissues, nose sore from blowing and wiping, mouth hanging open as I breath through it to avoid further angering my sinuses which are minutely sensitive to everything which they encounter. Even the air from which I have removed any additional olfactory stimulation, as I am forced to at least once a week. Favourite candles lidded, reed diffusers expelled to the kitchen, onesie and dressing- gown donned over my PJs to prevent the escape of fragrances from the Lush bubble bar, that I recklessly crumbled into the bath I ran for myself when the tell-tale signs first appeared.

My ‘Cortisol Cold’ (scientifically inaccurate but catchy, which matters!) is what I call this state. It’s been happening with varying levels of regularity for nearly a year now and I learned early on that it is my body’s way of telling me the score.

I am losing.

I have crossed too many of my boundaries and it is time to admit ‘defeat’; it’s time to stop. It usually lasts until I go to bed, and I wake the next day as if it had never happened. But this time was different. I woke up this morning (Saturday) feeling fine, but as soon as I got out of bed to go about my day, the streaming and sneezing returned.

Disappointed, I cancelled my gym class- the only thing I had scheduled to look forward to this weekend, amid a sea of rest which I knew would be needed to recover from last week and prepare for the next. I began to wonder if I did indeed have a normal, viral cold as my husband had suggested the night before. I still wonder, but the speed in which the symptoms appeared, and the lack of any other physical signs of illness, other than my semi-permanent exhaustion, are still creating doubt in my mind.

I guess the truth will out at some point, but even if it does prove to have been caused by an infectious agent, rather than my internal stop sign, I still consider it to be a component of that. Either way, to be stricken so soon after recoovering from COVID, my immune system is not performing at it’s best, and therefore neither can I. But I also cannot detach from functioning in the world until my body-mind decides that I am well enough to do so, much as I would love to.

And so, I spend each week trying to find that elusive balance between all the things that need to be done, the things I that I want to do, and those things which I absolutely must not allow to happen. And each week my body tells me the score which, more often than not, is that yet again, I have failed.

I’ve occasionally been accused of being negative in the past; dwelling on life’s difficulties rather than it’s joys. It is an accusation that I once accepted as a fair assessment but resented non-the-less. As I saw it, the number of difficulties I encountered were reason enough that it might seem that was all I had to talk about. Incidentally, I didn’t and never have, only spoken of hardship and sorrow (I experience deep joy in my life too!) I think that the fact that I spoke of it at all, before it became as common as it is to now, was enough to make it seem that way.

For several years now I have rejected that label and story. I did, and still do speak about the difficulties that life throws my way, but it isn’t and was never about garnering sympathy or trying to bring others down. It has always been my way of trying to make sense of the world, connect with others, and give them permission to acknowledge and share the darkness that lies within each of us, whether we choose to see it or not.

We are all of us light and shadow, joy and sorrow, pain, love and all things in between.

Life is made of light and shadow, past and furture and (especially) all thats's in between

People who know me in real life, and some from on-line will know me as someone who can be both introspective and extrovert, melancholic and joyful, easily angered but also hugely compassionate, analytical about the past and optimistic for the future. Otherwise, what’s the point?

I am both. And.

I don’t believe we can move forward in any meaningful way without engaging with our past and how it shapes us. Experience has shown me that those who try, are doomed to repeat patterns of behaviour which unacknowledged, proceed to trip them whenever it feels like they are making the progress they yearn for, sometimes taking down others with them. We must bring our stumbling blocks and wrong turns into awareness; allow them into the light, in order to avoid them.

I now reject and resent accusations of negativity, which I associate with a pessimistic nature. After all what greater sign of optimism, than someone who however often they fall, insists on getting up, dusting themselves off, and setting off again, incorporating the lessons learned in the fall (in the failure) to set them up for future success?

To my mind, negativity is saying ‘No’ to the parts of life that are uncomfortable, ugly, or ‘shameful’ and relegating them to the shadows. Disavowing things which although unpleasant to experience, are as much a part of who we are as those which are more socially acceptable. Rejecting roughly half of that which life has to offer us, and us to it.

Positivity isn’t about only embracing and extolling that which is ‘good’. It should be about accepting that life will give us experiences without assigning morality to them, or us for having them. ‘Bad’ things will happen to ‘good’ people and hard things will happen no matter how ‘positive’ your outlook. To me, positivity is saying, ‘yes’ to all of that.

So I will spend the weekend resting, glad of the sense of escape and connection that writing, and reading give me in the absence of being able to physically do so. I may add some photographs to my website, which my youngest son told me ‘Looks a bit boring’ the other day. I will leave the office by 4pm at the latest on the days when I am on site and try for take some lunchtime walks. I will simplify next week’s meal plan even further than I tried to this week and definitely include a takeaway on Friday! And if this time next week, my body again tells me that it was not enough… Or rather, that it was too much. I will return to the drawing board and try, try again.

To me winning looks like choosing to look back and learn from the lessons life has given me in, the form of failure, difficulty and loss. Choosing to increase my tolerance for all of what life has to offer, as I dust myself off and set off down the path once more. Choosing expansiveness, meaningful connection and hope.

You might even say… I am positive of it!

Update: Sunday morning and I’m still streaming and now also violently sneezing, despite not getting dressed, leaving the house or doing anything that could be considered an exertion yesterday, so I guess virus it is!🤷🏾‍♀️ Yay!

How have you been this week? Are you winning? If so, please share so I can celebrate with you!

If not, still share- are there any things from the post, or looking back in your own life that you can incorporate to give yourself a head start for a better week ahead?