Focusing on the positives of a shit situation can be difficult, it is necessary though. It helps you to feel grateful, to have something to look forward to, to see something other than steaming piles of shit everywhere! Right now I feel like I am in the middle of said steaming pile.
So how am I seeing a way out?
Firstly, I am coming off medication, so even though I am having really troublesome withdrawals I am also coming off medication and will be drug free for the first time in over 10 and a half years!!
However, this positive goal is not actually helping me that much on a daily basis. It is helping me to persevere and see this through to the end even though it is hard, I know that I have the strength determination and willpower to do it.
So I thought I would make a list of a few more positives happening right now in my daily life through this highly symptomatic time:
Due to the horrific neuropathic itching that I am experiencing I have gotten into the habit of moisturising my skin several times throughout the day with lotions and oils and lavender. I have the softest skin ever!
I am hibernating! A lifelong winter wish fulfilled. I haven't been out much because clothes are irritating me and I am exhausted and feeling pain and fatigue. So I have been reading, writing, knitting, watching TV (rewatching the sexy Henry Cavill in The Witcher). I have been giving myself what I need and I feel no guilt or shame in it.
I have been forcibly reminded about how doing very little is also healing. I cannot exercise much, meditation is not happening, sleeping pattern is out of the window. But I sleep when I can for however long I need to, I move and walk around as much as possible and have reminders on my phone to go up and down the stairs. Instead of trying to meditate or sit in silence and stillness I have gotten back into mindful hobbies, like knitting, writing something, creativity of any kind.
I am getting back into the habit of scanning my body and emotions not to analyse why I have this symptom and that side effect or is it withdrawal, is it this or that? No, just to see where I am presently in my mental, physical and emotional state.
For the first time since I was a teenager I have said I will not be cooking Christmas dinner, I don't have it in me. Every year I overdo it, I try new recipes I make too much delicious food and it's always complicated and tiring and then I am too exhausted to eat. I thought I would feel guilty but I don't! It is very freeing to put your needs first.
Overall the positives are reminding me that healing is not linear, we go up and down and spiral around, we don't move backwards it is a process of growth and regrowth, transformation and retransformation.
Who you are right now is not who you will always be. So who would you like to be?
I choose to be someone who values myself, my needs and desires and who doesn't feel guilty, ashamed or imperfect. I choose to be authentically me, weird, wonderful and wise. I choose to be free from the shackles of expectations and toxic positivity.
I choose to BE 💝
