Falling in Love

For the first week or so of my leave of absence I couldn't sit still.

I was constantly in motion, cleaning the house top to bottom, organizing and rearranging things. My body felt like it was vibrating. Even though I was totally exhausted it seemed I couldn't slow down. It felt good to keep busy however and get the things done that I had put off for the last year and a half.

I started to assemble what I thought was going to be my team of supporters. I had recently started therapy with an ADHD therapist and was also seeing a med prescriber for ADHD medication. My primary care physician had prescribed me a small dose of Lexapro at the beginning of covid for anxiety. Along with the mental health symptoms I was experiencing, I also developed high blood pressure. I still felt I needed a therapist that was familiar with trauma, as I believed the experience and symptoms I was having were a direct result of my job and the stress associated with it.

I reached out to the only other therapist I knew at the time, my old couples therapist. Now I normally wouldn't have done that, but I wasn't sure where else to turn. I needed someone quickly and I didn't have the energy or patience to go looking for a new therapist. I had also participated in a women's group, Shame to Liberation, with this therapist less than a year before and it is not a stretch to say, that group had a profound effect on me. So I figured she was the best place to start.

While I was assembling my care team I started to dive into my yoga practice.

I had loved and practiced yoga for a long time. It helped me with anxiety in the past and I knew it could again. I had been practicing Yin yoga for quite some time and had a felt sense about the benefits, so I started studying Yin myself and practicing, along with meditation, daily. I was looking for anything to help me calm my nervous system and try to stop the constant stream of thoughts running through my mind.

I also knew I needed to cut out anything that was activating my nervous system. The news, action movies, football, loud crowded places, any of these things would kick up more sensation in my body that I didn't feel equipped to manage at the moment. I needed to cut out all the extra chatter, because it was only making me feel worse.

I took the extra time to devote to myself and this feeling of needing deep rest and relaxation. I started coloring, read a ton, tried to educate myself on ADHD and this HUGE shift I was experiencing in myself, got cranial sacral massage, and started seeing my reiki practitioner weekly.

Ironically, I was treating my healing like a full time job.

I was working as hard to heal myself as I had been when I got burned out. My therapist had suggested I read the book "Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times" by Katherine May. It was such a gift, as it shed light on exactly that fact. The fact that I had been trying to force my way through this winter period of my life, but what I needed to do was stop and just feel it. I needed to build trust in my body again so I could hear what it was trying to tell me. This deep inner knowing that I needed to rest and stop DOING. Literally stop. Stop thinking about it, stop doing and sit with it.

Surrender is really tough when you can't hear that knowing voice inside you, when your nervous system is working in over drive. I remember believing I was ok, that everything was going to turn out ok, but I still didn't fully trust myself, and sought validation sources outside of my self.

Looking back, I can see how my fears were projected directly onto those closest to me. I was scared. I have also started to see how my beliefs about my self worth and value in the world were projected onto my partner and others. I was attracting exactly what I felt I deserved, and it turned out that wasn't much.

I had no idea that I was embarking on a journey to fall in love with myself. But that's exactly what these last two years have been.