It was easier before when I didn't feel.
 
Before my illness, I didn’t feel my emotions. They were neatly stuffed down, and I was numb… with the occasional explosion, of course. It took a liver disease, and being in bed staring at my ceiling for what felt like forever, to crack the thick layer of ice I had defensively coated my emotions with.
 
In the past I’ve traveled, and moved around the globe, and not felt a thing. I truly couldn’t relate when other people said they missed me – I thought, well that’s weird, I’m on an adventure! No breath. I felt nothing of this human “missing.”
 
This time is different.
 
As the plane lifts off from the mainland sweeping me back, once again, to my new little island home I realize for the first time that I’m homesick. I hate to admit that. Hate it. I “should” be above such a 13-year-old-at-summer-camp experience. Be that as it may, everything in me wants to dig claws in and prevent the take-off of this plane. Breathe. My life is clearly on this trajectory for a reason. And in this moment it is so that I can experience missing for the first time.
 
I have not written a single blog since I made this big move. My mind has created all sorts of good explanations about why that is, speaking at conferences, not having time, traveling, it wasn’t relevant, etc. Although all true, it’s important not to trust only our thoughts about what’s actually going on.
 
The truth in my body: I’m homesick. Ugh. My gut feels like an achy cavern. I don’t want to feel that. And I certainly don’t want to share it. Doesn’t that make me weak? Shouldn’t I feel more excited about exploring, and my choices to slow down and support my health?
 
Palm trees are great, but don’t make up for the gaze of your mother. The touch of your partner.
 
So, more accurately than home-sick, I would say that I am people-sick.
 
What is my imprint, my ripple, my impact. How does this get affected by distance and lack of contact? How do I remain in connection? What’s the opposite of out of sight, out of mind?
 
For the most part I am okay, but there are a few key people that I weep for in the distance. I am told, it is fine. It’s not a big deal. Don’t overthink it. A phone call is a phone call. On the other hand, I feel somehow it is heartbreaking how far I am away. And I try to tell myself it is fine, no big deal.
 
There is a battle going on: I want to protect myself from feeling the sadness by shutting it down, yet at the same time I want to feel it because I know it is human and healthy. And I also struggle, wanting to make other people feel more comfortable around me: they all do better when I  say I’m fine. Then they don’t hurt as much. Of course I know I’m not making them do anything. Yet in my self-judgment I tell myself that me feeling is mean – like I’m causing them to then feel the pain they can’t tolerate. And at the same time they’re trying to tell me they’re just fine too. We are all trying to save each other from the feeling of sadness, loneliness, and longing to be together.
 
On certain days, like today, the distance feels like a punch in the gut.
 
Oh, life is so short. To me the most important thing is connection. Relationship. Feeling our humanness. We regulate by gazing into the face of another. This is what we feel from our caregivers, and it is no different today as adults.
 
When we understand illness we understand disconnection. From our bodies, our families, our communities. We realize mortality is knocking at our door, the inevitable disconnection. We realize there is not time to waste in the precious life.
 
I ask myself, is it okay to sit in the discomfort of missing those I love? Of course the answer is yes. I am slowing down and supporting my health, which is why I came here in the first place. And I still feel the threads of connection to my people. Through the distance I feel aching and I also feel all of our strength and resilience.
 
Sometimes it’s harder to feel, but I think it is worth it in our quest to experience an integrated and rich life. To be with each other in a real, raw, honest, and human way, rather than run away. I don’t have the luxury of not feeling anymore. My illness blew that privilege out of the water. So, instead of being “just fine,” I commit to keep feeling. And today, that means missing. 

This morning. Inhale.
Began with doing yoga for myself, seated meditation, and my writing practice.
Sipping lemon water. Tart and warm. Scent still clinging to my fingertips from squeezing the juice.
Making my breakfast of local eggs, spinach, yogurt, and starfruit I picked off a tree.
I go into work from my center, from a place of being, to help others find their center.
Yesterday, my friend asked me in the afternoon if I wanted to come over for dinner. I said yes. I was able to say yes. I cried, overwhelmed with emotion that “yes” was my response.
I’m not in fairy land, I’m still exhausted; the residue of a doing life still breathes through my cells.  
 
Flashback. Exhale.
Try to inhale, but it gets stuck. Ache in my liver and spleen. That’s good information, I need to slow down. Let me look at iCal later and see when I can do that.
Obligated, fulfilled, can’t let anyone down, exhausted.
Go into work, barely ground myself at the last moment, support other people.
Try to find that one little place inside of me that is calm at the eye of the storm and operate from there. Work to find the good. Work to reframe.
Friend asks me if I want to grab a bite after work, in my head I laugh at the absurdity. I’m booking out dinner with people a month from now. Who can say yes to dinner that same night, ridiculous! I feel the longing and jealously.
 
As my dad says, my life depends on me getting out of my cycle that’s killing me. So, here I am in Hawaii. Inhale.
 
It sounds idyllic. I am set up for success here in almost every way, to heal, to exhale, this hectic, perfectionistic, exhausting lifestyle. Except for the neural pattern in my mind, and the imprint on my body of an entire lifetime that wonders: is this safe? Inhale. Can I slow down? Inhale. What are my beliefs about that, and the identity of outwardly visibly achieving, and who am I if that is stripped away? Gasp, inhale.. Not to mention, feeling scared to be healthy if that means loosing my feedback loop of liver pain which tells me to slow down… will the toxicity just creep in again? INHALE.
 
It’s scary and unfamiliar. So I do the best thing I know, I EXHALE. I breathe through the discomfort of slowing down, of trusting my body and my internal wisdom that knows this is crucial. I stretch, sip, breathe, connect. It’s okay, I’m okay.
 
It’s hard to redefine health for ourselves. I continue to battle with the sensation that slowing down means collapsing, I’m sick, I’m broken, I can't take a breath. That there is an active way to slow down and Yield, and come back to my essence which is held, restful, and okay, that the breath will come on its own. That this is my health. That I don’t have to prove anything to anyone. That I can just know I’m okay because this is the essential way that I was born into this world.
 
Our conditioning says to do shit…move fast, gasp for air, accomplish, show everyone our capacity, to get love.
Our essence says to be ourselves… move slower, healthfully, allow ourselves to be breathed, in the present, conscious of this precious life as it passes, to be love.
 
Our only job: Let it in. Trust. Recalibrate. Breathe.
 
From doing to being… my continual process as I ask myself: who am I now?

I don’t want to write this. I have the title at the top of my page and stare at it blankly each time I open up my computer, refusing to type a word. Ending. Yuck.
 
I’ve been wrapped up, consumed, overwhelmed with transition, completion, saying goodbye. I’m terrified and sad.
 
I just keep soothing myself; my adult self telling my scared child self that I’m going to be okay.
 
It’s dry and warm. I can feel my lower lip slightly chapped, as I wet it with my tongue. I am the last one to board the plane, my feet feel like lead as the slowly carry me forward, my breath is a mystery. I sit in my seat, hot, cold, not sure. My body remembers this feeling, it is the same before every medical procedure, every potentially challenging conversation, every final _________ . The anticipation of the unknown.
 
I call my Mom… she’s emotionally stranded in the main terminal, not able to leave either. I’ll be the one who has to leave. I’m always the one who leaves… an interesting role I’ve chosen.
 
The plane takes off and tears roll down my face. I don’t wear sunglasses. People in community can learn to tolerate the discomfort of emotion. I’m trying to do so with my own. This feeling of crying without anyone noticing or responding feels familiar.
 
I have gone through major transitions before in my life, many times actually. Many big moves, endings of relationships, and new adventures. This is different. Exhale. Tear. Because this time I’m feeling. In the past I stuffed down my emotions, pushed them forcefully away without even knowing I was doing it. I’m pretty sure I would have imploded at the time if I hadn’t. Our bodies are smart.
 
But now, apparently I have “skills” and can handle the gut-wrenching feelings associated with the grief and loss of saying goodbye to the world as I know it. To choose on purpose to shake up my life and delve into the unfamiliar in hopes of health and impact. Of staying awake and feeling through it all, because this is human. The pain at razor’s edge with the excitement and potential of what it will be like to step off this airplane and be bombarded with humidity, plumaria, and salt-water.
 
And I want you to know, that I will miss you. That you have changed me by being my friend, my inspiration, my reader, my illness, my hard mountain earth. That now our relationship will change because we are constantly becoming different people, and my life experiences are about to be vastly altered. And I have so much sadness, as well as so much excitement for what that will look like! 
 
We want to go unconscious during the ending, but this is the time to feel our humanity. The suffering and the joy only exist because of each other.

Wishing you all the gift of feeling through the many endings. It's worth it, to create space for the beginnings. Exhale.

​I am choosing a different way.
 
Choosing to change before I collapse.
 
This is the time for courage, for drastic life changes, in service of breaking a pattern that has had me in it’s clutches. No more.
 
My belief and story that I must constantly do, accomplish, and perform to make my mark. To help. To have influence. To be of service. To feel I have value and worth.
 
I am painfully aware that just being feels like failure.
 
This insidious pattern has reared its head again. And I am choosing to do things differently. I refuse to collapse again.
 
Instead, I’m going to move to Hawaii. Yup, seriously, moving to Hawaii.
 
Let me be clear, this is not a “geographical intervention.” I mean, it is, but it’s not. I am moving. And it is a very intentional reasons, with eyes wide open.
 
Stress is the worst. It wears me down, my body screams at me to stop, and often it is too late before I hear my body’s pleas. So, it’s time to try something new. I am saying, not just saying but shouting out loud to the heavens: I choose my health.
 
I choose a life worthy of being present to, of remembering, of not missing. I am not dropping out, I am dropping in. I am showing up to be rather than do.
 
And I am giving the system of my body a break. It’s been working hard, but I’ve crossed a line of business that cannot continue. So it’s time to slow down, and soak up the potentially uncomfortable slowness, and space, to bring my pacing back to a healthy place.
 
This time it’s not because I’m sick and have to, but because I choose to preventatively.
 
What in your life feels like is asking to happen to support your health that you have not been willing to change? How do you move from talking about doing it, to having the bravery to step into the fire of change? 

With your constrictive, boring, brown shell, one awkward foot, and waving antennae
I had no interest in knowing you
In fact, I don’t think I ever paused long enough to know you were there
Or had value
And now, here we are.
I’m moving in, and this isn’t going to be pretty.
 
The thrill of going fast
My former home is more like the flea-circus
Seeing the world whip by
Adrenaline
Faster, faster, faster I spin in my circle
Absolutely convinced I am going somewhere
Even though I’m imaginary
Until I fly off the ride and get thrown into myself.
 
My speed numbed me out to the present moment
Suddenly a lifetime is gone
Only I actually lost it one second at a time all along the way
Life is intimately connected to that present moment I was numbing to.
 
And guess what?
The snail has been patiently waiting for me there all along
I mean, it’s a snail, what else does it have to do?
With a little sign: for sale by owner.
 
So I move in.
Thinking that downsizing is the way to go. More economical, right?
Let me tell you, the process of moving into snail-dom is painful.
 
Trapped in my shell, pushing outwards, in a space that feels cramped, tight, not my size.
I have too much furniture, too many thoughts.
This shell is exerting pressure on me to just be me.
Slowing down feels like suffocating,
Being strangled.
There must have been a mistake.
This clearly isn’t my shell.
Somehow I was given a tiny house, when I’m pretty sure I was supposed to have a mansion.
 
How could this be what my body and life want me to do?
Slow down.
Is this really the "lesson" that seems to keep showing up?
 
My body is desperately trying to live out my souls work, and teach my mind.
It says, listen mind, it’s okay to:
Take a breath
Then breathe into relationship, with yourself, and the people you love.
Slow down enough to feel every part of your environment impeccably
Attuning, sensing, being.
Suction to the present moment so that it can be felt intimately
Move in, and take time to discover the inner world that you’re inhabiting
Realize that there is a mansion in this tiny house…
 
I just didn’t know it because I happened to be swinging on a little flea-sized trapeze at the time.
 
Although I’ve had a sneaking suspicion for a while
I’m suddenly realizing that going so fast maybe isn’t the way to go about life.
Brilliant insight, I know.
 
Am I trapped?
What am I trying to put on a fantastical circus act to get away from?
 
What could it look like to consider accepting that I’ve already put a sizeable down-payment on this this shell?
Could feeling trapped turn into support?
The relief of simplifying.
Space and time to explore the magic of what is here, and who I am.
So much scenery potentially missed.
A breath taken right now.
 
I want to trust.
I’m still going somewhere, but the path is guided by this shell.
It has gravity and weight as opposed to death-defying feats.
It’s a recalibration, and that takes time.
And it can be painful and uncomfortable for us, and those around us to get used to.
 
It’s brave to downsize so we can appreciate the preciousness of what we already have,
Finding the intricacies of Self in our snailshells. 

Yesterday one of my closest friends told me I’d betrayed her by making choices to move a different direction in my life, which would forever affect our relationship. It hurt deeply to hear this.  We were both being a bit reactive and intense, but the sentiment is true: my thoughts and choices lead me to becoming a different person.
 
Sometimes I feel like I’m letting everyone else down by asking the question Who am I now?  Because I continue to come up with new answers, and those answers continue to lead me away from who I once was.  And sometimes away from the people my older self was closest to.  For me, on a good day, it feels like the phoenix of my identity is rising! But, here’s the problem, as I try to continually shed my old identity (because every moment we are a new version of ourselves) it can feel like some people I love dearly try to grasp and cling to it. 
 
Here’s an example.  My parents are amazingly supportive, and have been my sounding board as I continue to ask these questions of who I’m becoming.  But then in some moments like this, right now, they are watching old video clips of me in a show I did and was interviewed for… actually my last show I did before I got sick.  I hear it playing in the background and it’s like someone punched me in my stomach. “That was such a great show, wasn’t it Zina?” I hear my mom say from their living room. “Yes mom.”  Yes it was. 
 
Could I be that person again right now, just for a moment?  Black lashes, red lipstick, heels, and dreams?  Before I knew about liver enzyme levels, and blood panel numbers that all have negatives next to them.  Before I knew about what mortality feels like in your cells battling each other.  Before I woke up.  Just right now for a moment- I promise I won’t tell anyone you let me step into my old life for a big inhale, to soak it in, how light and sparkly it was. 
 
Yes, I can take a trip in my memory, but it’s just not the same.  Which I grieve. It’s like looking through underwater, or frosted glass. I could cry right now for the weight and sorrow of it all.  I feel the heaviness in the back of my throat, the clenching. I realize I’m holding my breath, and I sigh out.  Ahh, relief. Big breath in, big breath out.  Look around. Oddly enough, the colors in this room right now are brighter than the ones in my memory.  Much more vibrant.  My breath is real.  The weight is real, but so is the color.  The past is past.  The present moment beckons.
 
This is a drastic example involving 6 years of time, illness, and change in who I am. In a smaller simpler way, though, this is happening every moment of every day, as our past selves fade from the moment, and a new reality appears.  We are constantly growing, changing, evolving.
 
I am trying to make this moment okay.  Sometimes that’s exhausting, but honestly, most of the time, it is okay.  And it’s much more exciting than the past, because this moment is still unfolding into mystery, whereas the past has already been known.  Not so exciting when I think about the past that way, it’s more like old news.  This present has potential for discovery.  For new things.  In the present we actually feel.  Feel it all.  Which can be overwhelming, but vital. .
 
It continues to feel sad to let go of our former selves, our former lives that we will be forever shedding like snake skin.  It is so hard to make choices, or to have them made for us, that make us feel like we’re disappointing the people around us that we love the most.  By becoming more yourself, in the most authentic and present moment version, it can feel like we’re hurting others who need or want us to be who we once were.
 
When I worry, I remember that everyone else around me is stronger than I can imagine, they’ll get through it too without me protecting them, and they’re growing into their present and next selves in the same way I am.  It goes both ways: I don’t want to treat them like their past selves either.  There’s space for us all to continuing to grow into the next version of ourselves.  Truly there is no one else we can be, and we’re in this evolution together.
 
And suddenly I hear myself on that video in the background and giggle, oh how naïve I was.  How sweet.  How frozen in time.  And I stretch, because right now I can actually move freely, and with choice, and am not trapped in a video box. 
 
There are some people we will let down as we change.  We just will. But we can’t take responsibility for it all, or be too afraid to take a breath and step into now.  Wishing you the continued space and courage to be who you are becoming, and to allow your relationships to shift with you.

I’m clicking my bright red sparkly heels together. Click, click, click.
 
I long to come home. To the way things were. 

Only here’s the problem… sometimes I click my heels and get back home, only to realize that home doesn’t feel the same anymore. Home looks different. It’s a skeleton or façade of what it used to be, and some new tenets have moved in… everything is different. This body, this house, these people that I love, everything that I thought I was working so hard to come back to has changed while I was in oz.
 
When we’re in recovery from something I think we focus a lot on what we’re recovering from. I’m more interested in what I’m recovering to. The idea/metaphor of home is what I’m recovering to. But if home may not be home anymore, then what are we working so hard to come back to, and is it worth it?
 
My most recent setback has been this sprained ankle. A new experience layered apon many other setbacks and recoveries. I want to do hard-core competitive recovery… I want to do do do. I want to feel like I have some control of how fast I come back. I want to use stim therapy, hot/cold pools, ultrasound, acupuncture, massage... 
 
I went into a bike shop yesterday, and tell the guy at the counter what I’m doing to recover… he says, oh ya, that’s Type A recovery. In that moment I realize I’m trying to recover the same way I got injured. Where’s the lesson?
 
The etymology of the word recovery comes from the 11th Century French “come back, return, get again,” and the 13th Century Ango-French “to regain consciousness.”
 
This has as much to do with my values and motivations as it does my body. First it’s about knowing what I’m coming home to, and second it’s about the process of coming home. And trying to do all of that differently than the tornado that swept me away in the first place.
 
1. What am I coming home to? Potentially a new body and life. I will have lost a lot, and a effected body, heart, and mind lay in the wake. But the resilience and potential to create something new, of value, authentically and unabashedly me is what sits in the void of potential.
 
2. The process of getting home is by “regaining consciousness.” By staying awake, no matter how hard it hurts. By being brave. By feeling the pain, because it means I’m coming home, to my new home. By being soft, slowing down, resting, and being quiet so I can listen. Shhh. Living in the integration, not missing any of it. This process is what teaches us.
 
Before I had a palace that I never fully appreciated, a body that did what I wanted it to and performed to the utmost degree. I come back now to see that I have a humble home with a few shingles falling off on the outside… but the fire inside has a Phoenix rising in it. And I’m awake.
 
Recovery isn’t so much an ending to something, as it is a beginning. For me I realize it’s about integrating the home of the past, and creating the home of the future. Shedding tears for what has been painfully lost, pulling up my big girl pants, and clicking those heels into the future with massive curiosity and excitement about where I land. Less Victim more Co-creator. I’m pretty sure that my wildest dreams can’t imagine the world I’m recovering into. And I have every reason to believe that home will be more evolved because of the series of tornados, witches, and flying-monkeys I’ve come through.
 
So I click my heels, slowly, wisely, listening to each click, knowing that I’m being taken to my new home and I want to experience it all. Click click click. 

Noun.

• Marrow- the fatty network of connective tissue that fills the cavities of bones
• Marrow- the most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience

 
Bone marrow biopsy
Bore out my vitality in a thread
Cherry red on the petri dish
The pain is excruciating
I don’t want you to see my most essential part
Taking a microscope to look at my essence
 
One more “first”
Anticipation of pain
A needle to my center
Owwww!
Sucks the heart
Leaves an absence
Deep aching left in the wake
 
It is a violation.
Perhaps the cavities of my bones will reveal
my pith to be altered
Maybe you will see
That I’m not at my core who you think I am
All pretenses and projections will be blown
 
The truth will be revealed
Perhaps it will be a relief, I don’t have to act any longer
You’ll see I’m broken, less-than, deformed, mutated, or otherwise not normal
And I’ll have to stop pretending.
Perhaps it will be my next greatest challenge, and I’ll have to show up even more
You’ll see I’m clear, resilient, scaffolded, filled with super-cells ready for action
And I’ll have to stop pretending.
 
Relief has many forms.
The line between positive and negative degrades to truth
This is more complex than results on paper
Because it is comprised of experience
 
The results will mean nothing/everything
They tell me and everyone else who I am
Yet say nothing about my hopes, desires, and capacity to love.
A life lived anchored in marrow.
 
I often wonder if I am strong enough for what I want to accomplish in this life
And now some of that strength will be removed
And then it will grow back fiercer
With renewed vigor
Intensely recommitted to being vital
To living out it’s impact and purpose
Perhaps I should say thank you
Thank you for removing a burdened cross-section
So that resolved vitality can replace it
 
 
With one more part of me removed… who am I now? 

Sometimes life doesn’t make sense, and it feels like it's taking us for a ride.
 
Yesterday I hiked 2000 feet up Manitou Springs Incline to almost 9000 feet, and ran down. Twice. A personal triumph of my recovery.
 
Tomorrow I go in for a bone marrow biopsy.

 
How can things be so rapidly, intensely, good and bad; how can I possibly take it all in and not be thrown off the ride?
 
My life feels like a roller coaster of extremes. So many ups and downs it’s nauseating trying to make sense of.  How can our best days and worst days be so inextricably connected? How can we possibly feel so much? When our lives don’t make sense, and our capacity is stretched so far, it can be dizzying, crazy-making, and human.
 
To be honest, some days I want to just get off of the ride. I want to exit the roller coaster car to the right, and go get some funnel cake. Sticky, powdered-sugar fingers. Sweetness. Slow enjoyment of the moment. A deep breath, a sigh, the slow mundane every day… But wait: Times up, fasten seatbelt, lower the bar for a false sense of safety.
 
Feeling like I’m in control on the roller coaster is a false thing… yet I want it. I fantasize about it. For example, I think about things such as if life made sense then if a good thing happened to me, it’s because I’m a good person. And if I keep being “good,” then only good things will happen. Translation: Do good deeds in the world for myself and others, and, the voice in my head says, I’d have fewer biopsies, and spend more time eating funnel cake… but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
 
The ups and downs don't make sense, or add up. And in addition, I don’t see that roller coaster being replaced by spinning tea cups anytime soon. And, truthfully, I’m pretty glad about that. My life has been intense as far back as I can remember. I learn and grow from the tightly woven ups and downs. I can handle it, and I would never trade tea cups for coasters… so how do I ride the coaster, be in the intensity, breath in the confusing moments, and know when to raise my hands up and let go?
 
On this seemingly out of control free fall of the coaster, suspended upside down with this tiny little seatbelt digging into my hip bone, can I accept it and ride it through? Can I be aware I’m going for a ride, and remember that I have the skills, foundation, and support necessary to come through the other side?
 
Sometimes we can’t get off the roller coaster. We can’t slow down the momentum and intensity of life. But we can recognize and accept that we're in intense times,, breathe with this moment to reveal it for the rickety coaster it is, and fully feel the ups and the downs.   

We can't have highs without lows, and sometimes they happen almost at the same time. What's one high and one low of your past week? Take a breath, and remember the experience of both of those moments. Now bring them together and notice if they can be in relationship. For a moment, just feel, the joy and the ickiness. There's room for it all, and it's all part of the human experience. 

​I hate quilts. Don’t worry, I didn’t just change my blog to be themed around an anti-pioneering sentiment. I hate quilts because of all those patterns. Sometimes I look at the patterns and get immediately overwhelmed and lost in them. 
 
Honestly, it feels like forever since I sat down to publish a blog. Why? (Thanks for asking by the way.) Because I scared myself with what I wrote 2 weeks ago when I began a blog. It felt so raw, dictated into my iPhone between sobs: poor Siri had no idea what I was talking about. I had to get a decoder ring out to decipher the dictation today. It was so personal I wasn’t ready to release it out into the world yet. There’s something to be said for honoring yourself and your timing.
 
This blog is about one of my many patterns… and really about patterns in general (so as I talk about mine, insert one of your own in there… the thing you want to change, and try to, but keeps coming back at varying degrees between slightly annoying and pull-your-hair-out-and-throw-something annoying. Ya, that one).
 
Do you ever notice that when you try to change that ingrained pattern that the universe pushes up against you, to test you, to see if you're strong enough to actually change? (Frustrated sigh)
 
Two weeks ago was that it’s-hard-to-shift-no-matter-how-hard-you-try kind of day. I couldn’t get any perspective because my stupid pattern felt like it was engraved in the fiber of my being, rather than just conditioning. You know, that moment where it seems like sometimes no matter how hard you try, those few patterns keep haunting you.
 
So here’s what I wrote:
 
I really want to slow down, I swear. Today I learned, no matter how hard I want this to shift, it's a battle. Over and over. Because not only do I have to convince myself, but it feels in this moment like I have to convince my family, and my culture.
 
Everyone wants me to keep doing. Achieving. All the time. No break. More more more.
 
Me? I just wanted a day off. But instead I got five hours of working out mountain biking, after four intense days of regular work. This happened because I couldn't use my voice. So instead of shifting things, I just did the same thing all over again. Doing, achieving, checking something else off the list. Another self-damaging activity disguised as an achievement.
 
I cried for the hour getting ready to go bike, straight through into the first two hours on my bike. I was so angry and sad I was doing the snotty weeping (which is extra not cute, by the way, when there’s wind). I was so upset at myself, because I couldn’t actively speak up to my family, my culture, and most importantly, my mind. Because I couldn’t advocate for the fatigue in my body when my relationships felt at stake. My health vs my dearest relationships. I value both so much, and sometimes they come head to head.
 
I want to create new neural patterns. Repeating the same thing deepens that pattern all over again. Literally it makes that neural pathway in our brain stronger. Again. Reinforces it. Yet here I am. Five hours of exercise stronger, making everyone around me happy, but my heart a little bit more broken for not honoring myself and my body. I guess I can always rest tomorrow. I am so aware that this is one of the reasons I got sick. And stay sick. And I don't know how much more strength I have to keep trying. (Knot in my stomach)
 
… Annnnd, flash forward to today. It hurts me to read what I wrote. But I also have a little more space from it, which feels refreshing. I wanted to share it with you because we all have those moments where we are in our brokenness, and feel like all the work we’ve done is pointless, because, well, here we are again.
 
And then there’s a new day. Brush off the dirt, and start anew. In the last 2 weeks I’ve fought for my rest time with new vigor. This was a painful experience to go through to be reminded that I’m my best advocate, but sometimes I suck at it. Here’s a fact: my important relationships will still be there at the end of the day. Even if I didn’t go on the silly bike ride. We can repair the ruptures, and still love each other. But my health has to come first. (Remind me I said this next time I blog about slipping up into over-achieving again… of course it’ll happen, because it’s not done teaching me yet.)
 
Painful to feel the “lather, rinse, repeat”… that I’m sometimes stuck in Groundhog Day. So hard to watch myself do things when I “know better.” When I want to honor my relationships, when I want people around me to be happy and I feel falsely like I actually have some control of that… maybe I do in the short term, but is it worth making myself literally sick over? Of course not. But sometimes it’s so hard to stand up for your own truth in your relationships.
 
So here are the bigger questions: How do we be kind to ourselves when our “dormant” patterns rear their ugly heads? (Because they will, and we won’t always be able to change in that moment.) How do we look back at a pattern that frustratingly got the best of us 2 weeks ago, and see how it pushed us to get more real with ourselves? How do we stay curious in honoring both our relationships and ourselves?
 
Maybe there are ways to enjoy the warmth of a quilt, despite the patterns.
 
Somehow we’re peeling layers of the onion, and turning coal into diamonds, and uncovering what’s already our inner wisdom, and all that. Wishing you kindness to yourself: we’re all still figuring this stuff out.

Feel free, as always to comment below if this feels true (or not!) for you too~