This last month and a half brought with it a whole load of drama. I won’t bore you with all the gory details, but basically, I developed some pregnancy related fluid in my inner ears, resulting in one ear getting completely clogged (like, pretty much deaf-level clogged), and some debilitating vertigo and nausea that rendered me couch-ridden for the better part of a month. I essentially couldn’t move my head without throwing up!
Not. Fun.
Although my official prognosis is “this just may continue until after you give birth!” (ugh.), my symptoms have gotten a lot better, and I can now walk around and drive unassisted, and was even able to restart my yoga practice last week. Yay!
The whole situation made me feel so out of control.
Thoughts like: “Why was this happening to me??” “I had had such an easy and healthy pregnancy so far, and now this?” and “But I’m so frickin’ healthy! I do everything right!!!” flew through my mind on a daily basis.
Yes, I threw myself a couple of serious pity parties, but I also did my best to maintain a sense of humor and lightness around this miserable situation.
It really made me think about how obsessed we can get with our health, and how harmful it can be to lose site of the big picture and our sense of humor.
I know that can seem hard (even impossible) when you’re dealing with big issues — infertility, illness, injury, obsesity — these awful situations can leave us feeling totally out of control of our bodies. But when we start to obsess, when we lose ourselves in our health problems, the path to healing becomes much, much longer and more arduous.
I’ve found the key to healing to be a balance of education, action, and release.
- Educate yourself about what you’re going through — knowledge is definitely power, and will help you feel more in control. Don’t just take one doctor or specialist’s word for what’s going on. Read for yourself, do the research. I had doctors prescribe medications for my ears and nausea that were Category B restricted substances in pregnancy — meaning they could harm my baby! SO not worth the risk. I researched all their recommendations and decided for myself what was best. I also saw alternative practitioners and researched alternative and holistic healing modalities..
- Only after you feel empowered by knowledge, take action. Make appointments with people you trust, try some remedies that you have researched, do what you need to do to heal. Take initiative and take responsibility. You have SO much more control and agency than you think. What you eat, what activities you do or do not partake in, what thoughts you allow in your mind — all of these things will contribute to your healing. Taking focused action helps you feel like you are, indeed, doing everything you can do.
- Then, you have to let go.. I found myself obsessively researching the same things online even after I already had the answers, just as a way to deal with the frustration. I also got super down on myself about the fact that I had to completely stop exercising for a whole month. What I needed to do was RELEASE. I told myself that I’m doing all I can do, that I know all there is to know. All I can do now is give my body the space to heal, and not totally lose myself in this drama. I laughed. I played video games with Jonathan. I made the best of an admittedly crappy situation. I did my best to stay ME — and not some new version of dizzy-nauseous-deaf-miserable me.
You have a lot more agency in your healing than you think, and a good deal of it lies in your thoughts and attitude. Keep it all in perspective. Stay yourself. Don’t obsess. Be positive.
You. Will. Get. Better.
{Image via Pinterest}
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