I’ve been silently MIA for about a week since my surgery and the truth is that I planned it this way because I knew I would need time to rest, recover, repair, and just BE.
But honestly, I’m feeling impatient with my recovery…I want to do different things than I am able to do now. I want to be on the other side of this, but I know it’s not helpful to rush things and that I need this time for healing, resting, and listening to my body…and so I’m doing my best to accept what is as is and just BE in my rest and recovery stage.
Yet it still feels like I haven’t done a damn thing for a solid week other than sit or sleep, so I decided to take inventory of my week to develop clarity about my feelings.
This past week I have:
- Had surgery to remove a tumor (and subsequently an adrenal gland)
- Gone back to ER after being home about 24 hours due to low oxygen, difficulty breathing and ruled out serious complications in exchange for a minor one
- Taken naps when I’m tired, moved when my body wants to move
- Practiced Wholeness-based Energy Healing and Self-Care on myself daily to facilitate my natural healing process #bodyintuitive #bodyiskey #intuitivehealingsystem #wholecare #selfcare #energyhealing
- Held space as much as possible while recovering for Daunte Wright’s mother, family, and loved ones…and all Black folx facing more systemic trauma (again) by calling out racist, ignorant, tone-deaf, privileged, or harmful comments I see online (not much, but doing what I can from my sofa while recovering) #DaunteWright #BlackLivesMatter
- Spending extra time with my family because, well, we’re all stuck at home not doing much so we may as well enjoy it!
- Connected with friends, family, and loved ones who are checking in on me
- Watched several really good movies I haven’t seen before
- Helped my kiddo shift out of some anxiety/depression energy that has been pressing on her for a few weeks
- Read a novel #handmaidstale
- Snuggled kitties
- Thought of all the things I’d rather be doing than healing from surgery…and made a list of things I was inspired to do from these thoughts so it wasn’t wasted energy!
- Anticipated somewhat impatiently getting back to working with all my clients (I can wait, I just don’t wanna lol)!
Above is my inventory list of things I’ve done – truths about how I’ve spent this week, as opposed to feelings about how I’ve spent this week. Now that I listed out what I’ve been doing for a week, I have clarity about my feelings and/or what triggered my feelings. This clarity/truth helped my feelings shift, as now it feels like I have done more than I felt like I had done.
Clarity is a powerful tool because it can shift how we feel and our perspective about something… the shift that precedes change. Lasting change, too, if it is addressed on all levels…not just the mind or the nervous system or emotions or beliefs – all of these levels and more. This is why clarity is something I teach in my coaching programs. When I began writing this post, I felt impatient and a little annoyed at the pace of things…like feeling stuck in recovery or in limited movement/action. And even though I *know* I need to rest, resting for a solid week is difficult when trying to actively overcome my own systemic capitalistic, patriarchal productivity culture conditioning that operates in my nervous system telling me ‘it’s not okay to NOT be productive’…
That conditioning goes deep, it is rooted in more than just the systems we live within, but also within our family systems…at least for some of us, including my own family…and it lives within our bodies, wiring our nervous system, biochemistry, and physiology.
The way our body holds these conditioned stories form our subconscious belief systems that affect how we behave, feel, act, think, relate, and show up in the world. It affects our outcomes, such as whether or not I push myself too far during recovery or not. It dictates my internal dialogue and feelings about resting post-surgery. It can affect my choices, my actions, and my mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing.
I consciously know that it IS OKAY to just rest and be, so I continue practicing doing just that even as my subconscious conditioned patterns present themselves. And knowing, or being mindful of, is not enough to overcome the patterns the body holds. It requires a wholeness-approach that addresses our conscious and subconscious patterns on all levels: body, mind, emotions, and energy/soul.
Practicing overriding your underlying programming takes you from feeling totally uncomfortable with your new choice of actions to a point of comfort with a new normal, one that supports and sustains you…and every point in between. It often requires guidance and support. I now feel I’ve reached a point where I can be more comfortable with BEing instead of DOing, and when I feel that discomfort with it creeping back in I remind myself that I’m a Human BEing, not a Human DOing and then I start taking inventory to the point of clarity. That is what this post is. A simple inventory helped clarify my feelings to a point that they shifted into something more comfortable!
You are a human BEing, too…we all are. None of us are human DOings. We can do all the things AND still take care of ourselves, listening to our bodies and responding. I used to run myself ragged until I crashed (and sometimes burned out) and feel guilty if/when I stopped doing even if I had crashed. I associated my value and worth with how much I could get done and how well I performed. It was not sustainable, in fact it contributed to my past physical, mental, and emotional illnesses and imbalances. Not to mention the disastrous and destructive relationships I had with myself and others.
If you want to unpattern your subconscious conditioning, beliefs, pain/trauma, or programming from your body or learn how to implement Wholecare (self care that activates self-healing) practices that address mind, body, emotions, energy, and spirit for growth and healing you can always schedule a free discovery session with me…or you learn more about how everything is connected in my free PDF ‘3 Ways Your Physical Body Impact your Personal Growth and Wellbeing’.
Before I go, I want to thank everyone who has reached out, dropped off meals, continues to check in on social media, has left comments, sent gifts, sent messages checking in on me…or are reading this update.
I am grateful for a community that enables my ability to heal at a rate that is actually much faster than I expected. I hope to start sharing my personal healing practices for recovery with you next week to inspire you with what quick, practical, effective wholecare looks like…I hope you’ll check it out. There’s much more to come this year as I recover and return to my regularly scheduled activities…
Until next time, Michelle
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