Last night was the second night in a row that I slept through the night without interruption! I am so grateful! It's like a miracle! My hormones must be re-aligning! I can't even remember the last time I slept through the night without awakening multiple times. I think it must have been in Australia, prior to hot flash onset. That's another thing for which I am grateful: my hot flashes have completely ceased! If I only had to suffer those for 2 months, I am the luckiest woman in the world! I have heard women complain of their many years of suffering with hot flashes and insomnia due to menopause; my symptoms started late January and ended i few weeks back in mid-March! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I credited codeine for my first night of uninterrupted sleep, but I didn't need any yesterday for my ankle and still, I enjoyed a second full night of sleep. Oh, it is beauteous! If you have ever suffered insomnia, you now how precious a full 8 hours can be! I have to admit I am feeling sorry for myself today, which is why I am hoping this Gratitude and Intention Post will help. Stepping in a hole on Monday, right as we had begun work on the garden, really brought me down physically and emotionally. This always seems to happen when I am making strides toward health — be it physical, mental, or emotional health! I am pissed! On the upside, I researched physical therapy for ankle injuries so I have a list of exercises I can do to heal quickly and I will order an ankle brace so I can start walking again. But damnit, I suppose I need to do some writing about these injuries and try to figure out what is behind them, subconsciously or emotionally.
Anyhooha, today is a Fasting Day, so I intend to do my best at not eating until tomorrow, which will be a good 36-42 hours if I can keep it up. It’s not the hunger that gets to me; rather, it’s boredom and frustration and despair. These are the feelings that always get me! On the other hand, I am grateful that I can walk, that I found rehabilitation exercises, and that I am in a lovely setting with lovely people. I am also grateful to have discovered IF and that I have the will to do it! I am also grateful that I found a way to sit relatively comfortably so I could practice pranayama this morning: kapalabhati, bhastrika, and nadi shodanham.
0 Comments
All my recent posts on this page have been gratitude posts, even though not necessarily denoted as such. I’ve felt a surge of gratitude almost daily, whether expressed in written form here or not; all I have to do is sit outside on the porch a moment. Look and listen. I’ve been overflowing with gratitude toward my friend, for spending time here on her farm is the most healing time I’ve experienced in years. I’ve also been grateful for my personal fasting experience. Both have been so transformational. These last two weeks—three weeks on Wednesday—have been so calming and relaxing: for the first time in over five years, I finally feel free of stress and fear. My nervous system* is re-setting; it is no longer pummeling through Fight-or-Flight mode. This release began in the ashram, but culminated here, because of the setting. For instance, as I sit and write this, a pair of Bluebirds is building up their nest not 4 meters from where I sit on the porch! After so many years fighting the effects of PTSD and stress, I strongly note their absence. I was slowly regaining some of my emotional resilience when I moved to China, and my nervous system was settling down. But the stress of living in China combined with working at a horrible job was too much, and I lapsed back into anxiety and depression. I also experienced several traumatic events while I was living in China, which didn’t help: my Dad died the third week after my arrival, I fell and broke my arm, I had numerous severe respiratory infections because of the air pollution, work was bad enough that it had become traumatic, and I experienced a hiking emergency while hiking alone in the mountains of Kham, Tibet. All the progress I made to recover from PTSD, MDD, and GAD, unraveled during those 15 months in Chengdu! I thought a sabbatical from teaching, spent relaxing in and touring Australia, would help, but the isolation there was too much and I didn’t get the social connection I needed to help me recover emotionally. My emotional side definitely has shown itself capable of overwhelming my physical self most of the time. Therefore, I definitely did not bounce back and heal the way I had hoped. But here at the farm, what I feel now, here on the farm, physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, is so healing and refreshing! I am experiencing the physical sensations of living without stress, or rather, an absence of all the physical sensations of living with stress, anxiety, and a hormonal system run-amok with stress hormones. I am sleeping better, eating better, feeling better, smiling more, laughing more, and feeling more empowered and positive about the future. As for fasting, I am so grateful to my friend for the book she lent me on fasting, by Stephen Harrod Buhner; it opened completely a new door that was previously only shining light through cracks! Finally, not a new diet, but a new pathway to heal my relationship with food and with my body! I am confident that this will be one of the great transformations in my life! There is so much to write about and express, but I’ve done that in other posts. I’ll just state that I am truly grateful to be in the midst of the process to change how I eat, increasing knowledge of physiological pathways of hormones related to hunger and health, and of improving my current and future health status! *By "nervous system", I am referring to neural pathways that change or are created as a response to stress and anxiety; physical manifestions of anxiety, depression, and PTSD (light and sound sensitivities, lethargy, insomnia, etc.); emotional manifestions (worry, stress, withdrawal, despair, isolation, compulsive eating/drinking, etc.); and mental manifestions in the form of thoughts that are uncontrollable (repetitive, fearful, negative, depressive, suicidal ideation, etc.).
|
Gina is...surprised it is 2020! Holy crap when did that happen! Archives
December 2020
Categories
All
|