Friday Lights: Maybe your self-talk needs to be a little kinder

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What a strange short week. Usually, you expect a work-week that's one day shorter to be a little easier. Not so!

I was already tired from visiting family for Memorial Day, then - call it the full moon, call it whatever you want - my energy and anxiety levels were in hyperdrive Tuesday and Wednesday. I started abstaining from any tea that wasn't a decaf herbal after 7:30 a.m., I've been taking CBD and kava extract, and I was keeping up on my exercise schedule that I started about 2 weeks ago. My body hadn't been giving much, if any, indication of overtraining. My fatigue issues were nothing out of the ordinary - in fact, they'd been slightly better because a lot of my anxiety triggers are now permanently in the past.

Since I did have some extra steam from anxiety-jitters to run off on Wednesday, I gave myself a little more time and intensity on the treadmill that day. Yesterday at work, I expected a fairly chill day since we'd expertly handled all the unexpected curve-balls from earlier in the week. Then, we got another curve that took over half my day to sort out and stressed me rather badly. I was looking SO forward to my gym time. I finally got to clock out and start on week 4, day 1 of Couch To 5K.

I was doing just fine for about 15 minutes, then the bottom just utterly dropped out. My legs started hurting moderately, I broke out into a cold sweat, and my stomach flip-flopped with low level nausea. I stopped the run intervals and stuck it out to my normal length of time, but at a gentle walk instead. Maybe I should not have, because my body and emotional systems were freaking out for the rest of the night. I cried all the way home. I needed 2 blankets to stay warm, even though the house was about 73 degrees. I felt super overstimulated. I couldn't handle loud noises, and even David trying to rub my arms to calm me went badly, because I couldn't handle that much sensation on my bare skin. I couldn't eat. My stomach felt jacked like when I'm in a bad-anxiety zone to the point where eating is nearly impossible.

I got even more upset, because my cholesterol reading earlier this week was in the crapper, my BMI is way higher than I want it to be, and I often feel like, although I was buffeted by a lot of economic and mental-health circumstances out of my control, I should have handled it better. Sixteen years ago, I was in very good physical shape. Yesterday, my body short-circuited after a moderate 15 minute jog - which I'd had to *work up* to. Surviving the last 10 years has wrecked not just my spirit, but my body, in ways I'm still discovering.

I'm trying not to be so hard on myself. After all, I'm still recovering from a lot of trauma. One bad day is not a major set-back. I managed to get down a few bites of food and some cranberry juice, then spent the evening cuddling with David, napping off and on 'til bedtime, and listening to healing sounds like this:



I got into singing bowls a while back, thanks to some ASMR videos and a festival experience or two. 528 Hz is a frequency that's supposed to promote healing and pain relief. It's a soothing, droning frequency I like to put on at a low level when I have a headache. This video is the best of both worlds. I just wish it was longer. Yesterday's breakdown was upsetting, but it was also a needed reminder that, after all, I am still healing from a significant amount of trauma. I can't race at all cylinders, mentally or physically, 1 hundred percent of the time. I'm not a "neurotypical" person, and the mind and the body need to work in synch. And that's OK.

Here are some enlightening links for the week:



Be kind and have a great weekend, loves!

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