A few days ago, I got so sick that I wasn’t able to attend my own daughter’s fifth birthday party. I had a raging fever and knew that I couldn’t power through it.
I cried as my husband, daughter, and mother-in-law left for the party (a super fun event held at a local karate studio called Bushi Ban) because I was so frustrated to miss such an important event in her young life. But those tears were also tears of frustration at myself.
The truth is I have not been walking my walk. I have been a big advocate of smart self-care for almost a decade now, however, in the month of January I have not been practicing what I preach.
To be fair, Life has thrown me several curve balls (a fender bender, a large collections notice from a medical bill in 2014(!), a sick child, an even sicker husband, unexpected surgery for my mom and oh yeah, my car’s been in the shop for a week because it won’t start!). But because my schedule in January was so packed with professional and personal commitments, I didn’t have any wiggle room to deal with Life–which sometimes is messier than we would like it to be.
My body was telling me to slow down two weeks ago when I got a cold the day before my birthday, but I didn’t listen. If I had been paying attention, I would have really honored my body’s request for a recalibration. I could have rescheduled a few things and built in more white space into my calendar. But instead, I powered through it with the help of some herbal remedies and continued my very hectic pace. I reasoned with myself “I just need to get to the end of January and I’ll be fine!”
Well, I only made it to January 23rd and my body said “NOPE. STOP. You’re DONE. You are being sidelined for a while.” The price of not paying attention was high. I spent three days in bed and on the couch. I missed my daughter’s birthday party and I missed out on emceeing an event for a dear friend who just celebrated the launch of her new book.
The gift in being sick is that you have time to contemplate your life and how you might do things differently next time. Hindsight is always 20/20, right? So I hope that I am able to learn from my mistakes and I offer these thoughts and hope that maybe you are able to learn from them, too!
Remember the following:
- Your body is wise. It is a finely tuned machine and when it’s out of balance, it will let you know. It is well aware of when a course correction is in order!
- Your body is a great communicator. It communicates with you constantly. But you have to slow down and be quiet enough so that you can listen to the messages and interpret them.
- Your body is a sacred vessel. If you care for it, it will care for you. If you neglect it, ignore it, push it or abuse it, it will get off kilter and eventually break down.
So the next time my body talks to me, I’m going to listen. How about you?
Elizabeth