Divinely Crafty

Instead of writing a nostalgic New Years post taking inventory of the times past, I decided yesterday that I would start the year with a post on New Years Day about making resolutions, improving ourselves and the idea that we must always be striving to make ourselves more of something. About how we pepper our moments of awareness with ‘shoulds’ and ‘should-nots’. I made a plan that this afternoon I would take time to sit and write a substantial and well thought out post. I even made a quick start last evening and jotted down some thoughts to build on in the post. I was determined to do things differently and get the year off to a good start. So you can imagine my disappointment when I woke up this morning to full blown pain flare and fog in my brain as thick as the fog rolling along the pastures out my bedroom window (which, for your reference, was dense and heavy as it often is on cold English mornings). My first course of action was to psych myself up in order to push through with whatever energy and will I could muster. I gave myself one heck of a pep talk. Starting the year off right and all that. Because I should.

I sat at my computer with inspiring music playing, pillows to support my sore back and settled in to just do it. And I couldn’t do it. My bones ached and my thoughts mushed around in my head. Not today. This is not the day on which I will write deep thoughts about anything. It is a day, nonetheless, that I have the opportunity do things differently than I have in the past. Instead of rebuking myself for not pushing through at any cost, or pitying myself for being at the mercy of the whims of fibromyalgia’s sufferings I am surrendering with strength and grace to that which is here now. And with strength I am writing this brief hello and then will retire to my bed where I will spend the rest of the day with a cup of tea and a few select choices on the BBC iPlayer.

Happy New Year to you all, and may it hold much creativity and coping. And may we find love for all that we are, even in the messes we make.

Tags: coping, fibromyalgia, pain, self improvement

In my many attempts to find peace, if not relief from the pain and fatigue that comes with having fibromyalgia I have started doing some self hypnosis. I started out with a little bit of general relaxation and motivation boosting with an audio recording I downloaded for my ipod. I did this in total secrecy. I didn’t want anyone to know what I was trying for fear of yet another dissapointment. It is hard enough to be let down myself, but seeing hope being dashed in those closest to me is what is truly devastating. So each day after the house was empty from the morning rush around and everyone was off doing their day, off to my room I would go – ipod in hand and earphones in place – for my secret journey into hypnosis. After a few days I began to think that maybe I might be onto something. I felt more grounded and calm than I have in such a long time. I have always done the “stop, pause, breath deeply” method of handling stress and feeling overwhelmed, with I admit, less than effective results. But with the hypnosis something has changed. My breath began to feel more complete, more relaxing, more free. It sounds strange, but until now it has been almost like my deep breathing was forced and even stressful in its own way. But its different now.

With my small but exciting shift that has come from the hypnosis, I decided to “confess” to my husband about what I was doing and branch out into seeing if maybe this hypnosis stuff could help me with my sleep. Trying anything for sleep is terrifying to me. I have tried it all – herbs, sleeping tablets, breathing, meditation, relaxation tapes…. all of it. I have been able to get to sleep but staying asleep has never been achieved. Part of the fibromyalgia profile is that you don’t go into the restorative sleep that happens after dream sleep. For me, I would occasionally get deep enough to have a dream (on sleeping tablets or herbs – very rarely on my own) but would wake up and have to start all over again. It was not unusual to have a night when I would see every hour on the clock. With the average of 20 minutes to get back to sleep it doesn’t take a genious to figure out I was not getting enough sleep period, nevermind good quality sleep. Daring to hope that hypnosis might help was scary. I wasn’t sure I could take another let down if it didn’t work. Yet with the small but significant success with the other hypnosis I decided to give it a go.

The first night – nothing was very different. I tried not to be too discouraged, and kept on with it. Within a few nights I realized one morning that I could not recall waking up the night before. hmmm…..veddy interesting…. A few more nights and yes – there was definate change. Again, very subtle but encouraging. I told my husband one day in a whispered hush (for fear that saying it aloud would jinx it) that I think I slept the night before. I felt like a kid telling their confidant that they got away with stealing a cookie. A guilty pleasurable secret. Though I was still not fully convinced. I didn’t do my hypnosis a couple of nights this week for one reason or another and I was delighted to find that I was MISERABLE the next day. Never has feeling like such crap been so joyful. It seemed like I may have been proving my success by showing how different it was to skip it.

Last night I went back to the sleep hypnosis before bed. I drifted off quickly but awoke when Axel came home from a night at the pub with friends. I managed to get back to sleep easily enough and next thing I know………..its morning!!! And I feel freakin’ FABULOUS! There is this incredible energy flowing up my spine and I feel like there is a spark in my step. I got sleep. Good sleep. Not just pass out from exhaustion sleep, but fill up the tank sleep. The greatest gift ever.

Only time will tell if this experiment in hypnosis will have lasting effect, but for today I am so hopeful. The hypnosis is part of a 3-fold strategy towards healing that I have been brewing in my head. The other 2 are yet to be tested and I will not reveal what they are until I have done my trial with them. I am going very slowly and introducing one at a time, measuring change with each one before I go on to the next. I have spent so many years seeking out answers from experts and not listening to the most expert of experts on what will help me – ME. silly me.

Tags: coping, fibromyalgia, hypnosis, sleep

I have very few needs. (I want plenty, but need little.) Sunlight and warmth are needs.

England in Winter provides neither.

I languish in the gray and wish………..

Tags: coping, fibromyalgia, pain

What do you do when you don’t know what to do?

In my classes we muse over this line of thought quite a bit. There can be twists and turns in labor. Moments where you must decide if you need to let go of something and possibly do something different. On the journey of birth we come upon gates where we may have something taken away from us in order to get through the gate. For birthing parents this might mean the birth pool springs a leak so they birth on the bed or maybe the floor. It may mean accepting an epidural when they had worked and prepared so deeply for an unmedicated birth. Its heartbreaking. Its hard, but in that moment you know that it is the next best thing. So it is in life, I have learned.

Today I find myself not knowing what to do.

So, wise mentor that I claim to be… What do you do when you don’t know what to do? The words you have given to others say ~ Stop. Feel the earth beneath your feet. Do nothing extra. I am finding this very difficult right now. I know that something needs to change. I know how I wish it was, how I desperately don’t want to give up hope of it being. But at what point to you say “Okay.”? How do accept how things are? How can you be sure?

Don’t worry that I am just going to wax philosophical and leave you thirsting for the dirty lowdown. I will lay it all out for you. Nothing poetic about any of it really. Its my fucking body. This fucking illness that sucks my spirit dry. Fibromylagia. What the hell ever. The name means nothing to me. Letters on a page. What means something to me is having morning come and feeling worse than when I went to bed the night before. To spend the day in a stupor of exhaustion. Muscles twitching and burning. Knowing in your heart that no amount of positive thinking, powering through, or sucking it up is going to change a damn thing. Potions,pills,practices…nothing offering a way to live the life I want to live. And thats just it. I am not going to die from this. That is great. Really. With all my heart, though I may whine and cry endlessly, I am thankful that I am not aflicted with a life threatening illness. But just because I can live does not mean that I can live the life I want to. Accepting that is a bitch.

I love my work with birthing women and families. I love being a childbirth mentor and a doula. I would even dare to say that I am good at it. When I am able to be fully present and give my love to my work it is so good. I feel good in my heart. I even get a bit of lift in my body. Its this lift that keeps me going. But more and more it is a struggle to get going in the first place. My body does not consult my diary when deciding when it is going to give me a small taste of sweet relief. It does not matter one bit if I am on call, if I have a class or a meeting. It doesn’t matter that after all my work and perserverence that finally I am beginning to break out and build a reputation and people are seeking me out. It doesn’t matter that for the first time in my life I feel like I am good and worthy and strong. ha ha. Yes strong. I can even see that what I put up with every day takes my great doubt, great faith, and great determination. I see it. It has gotten me as far as I am. And in the process I have left very little for my family, for me, for the rest of my life.

Yesterday morning I dragged myself – unbathed, hair tossed in a pony tail, wearing dirty clothes to my youngest daughters nativity play at school. Even that took great determination. One hour out of the house and I came home into total colapse. Exhausted from watching my little girl sing her heart out, beaming to me and Axel in the audience. The rest of the day was a series of boughts of despair and tears, vain attempts at paliative care – warm baths, herbal tinctures, resting. My middle daughter had a performance at school that afternoon of a short play she has been working on for weeks. The time to go see her perform came and went with me lying on a soaking wet pillow (I was too tired to dry my hair after my bath) crying. I could not find whatever it was I needed within my to get up and go. The thought of getting into the car and driving sent me into a panic. I am so tired I get lost on my way from my room to the kitchen. The guilt of letting her down – again – eats away at me. I had a class to teach in the evening. I knew that if I pushed myself to go to her show that I would absolutely not be able to teach my class. The battle was my daughter…..my class. My body won. I had to get Axel to drive me to class. I put everything I had in me into class and came home to crumble again. Lying in bed for the night, my body not giving a darn how much money I spent on a good mattress. The touch of a feather hurts. Another night of vain attempt to get some sleep. I am on call for a birth and I live in fear that the phone will ring and I will not be able to be the aware and peaceful birth partner I have promised to be.

And so it goes most days. Anja said it so well, and it cut me deep when I tried to explain in a simple way to her friend why I couldn’t go to the park with them because I felt poorly. “Mommy is poorly alot of the time.” shit. just shit.

I am stuck at a gate. Do I give up this work? Not cut back, but let go. It isn’t the kind of thing I could do casually. On a practical and spiritual level. Its a lifestyle. I feel like I short change my family, my clients, and myself. At what point do I breathe in all that I have accomplished, be grateful that I could do what I have done. When do I know it is time to do the next best thing. I have alternatives open to me that are completely acceptable. I have other things in my life that I can better fit into my physical limits. Things that bring me equal satisfaction to my birth work.

But letting go of something that I have held so close and strongly,given so much to and have received so much from….

What do you do when you don’t know what to do?

Tags: coping, fatigue, fibromyalgia, pain