When you don’t want to listen to their advice…
Whether you’ve picked it up by now or not, I am a bit obsessed with how our mindset can influence our bodies and our surroundings. Today that got shoved in my face. For no clear reason, I was overcome with nausea and vomiting. No idea why and it felt horrible.
In my misery of illness, lying on the bathroom floor, head in the toilet bowl, I say to my partner Dan - ‘why am I vomiting???’.
He says ‘you want my honest answer?’.
I instantly think ‘no, I fear I’ve made a mistake asking this question’ but alas I persevere and say ‘yes’.
He continues to tell me that he thinks it’s emotional and I’ve got a lot of stress on my plate right now which is presenting itself as an illness.
Boom.
That’s a sucker punch in the face if I’ve ever felt one.
You see, it’s easy to talk about this stuff from a place of health and wellness. It’s much harder to accept it when you’re in the throes of discomfort.
I whole heartedly believe that illness is the body’s way of delivering a message to our conscious minds. It’s a reflection of something deeper going on within us and a message to take action on an area of our lives. So to say that I wasn’t proud of Dan for suggesting this would be a lie, all my years of telling him my beliefs is finally wearing off. That said, I didn’t want to hear it today. I wanted a clear and definite reason.
You ate the bad chicken.
There’s gastro going around.
Whatever it is that meant this illness had a standard shelf life and I could expect it to subside within a few days. Unfortunately that doesn’t appear to be the case, and my lovely fiancé may be right in suggesting its got more to do with my emotions than any other reason.
So here’s what I did…
Let myself sleep.
Deep, comfortable, uninterrupted, guilt free rest. And boy did I rest! I dont think I’ve laid so still in my life. Two solid hours on the couch, completely out of it. Deep in rest. Usually taking some time on the couch in the middle of a work day is riddled with guilt and reasons why that’s not appropriate, but when my body is calling me to literally purge everything from it’s insides, its time to sit still for a second.
Ate what I needed.
When you need nutrients the most, your body will tell you what it requires. When I’m eating for pleasure I can crave all wonderful and delicious things - pizza, bread, chocolate brownies, but when I’m unwell there was only two things I wanted to eat this morning - fresh salad and sausages. Let’s not dissect why I have a random craving specifically for sausages, but my goodness, they’re delicious! Give yourself permission to nourish your body with what it needs - if you listen closely, it will tell you. I’ve been indulging a bit more than usual lately, and it’s resulted in my gluten and carbohydrates in my body than it prefers. I’ve been feeling it, and today that came to a hault. WE WANT NUTRIENTS! It was screaming at me. So I listened.
Reviewed and refined my vision.
When my body is asking me to sit still, it’s usually because there’s a lack of alignment in what I’ve been doing recently. It wants me to slow down and have a reset. So that’s what I did. Reset on my vision. Reset on my focus points. These are the questions I asked myself today:
What is the biggest thing on my mind at the moment?
What have I achieved this month?
What do I want to achieve this month?
Where do I see myself going in the next 6 months?
What do I need to change/start/include to get there?
They sound so simple, yet they’re so effective. We so often forget to take a small amount of time to check in with ourselves and ensure we’re asking the questions that will get us ahead. It’s easy to focus on all of the reasons why something doesn’t working, let’s flip that and ask the question on what we need to make it work.
The important thing to note here is that you need to go further than you think with each of the questions. Spend 10 minutes writing your answer to each question. When you think you’ve got it all answered, write some more. You’ll be surprised with what comes up when you keep going further into your thoughts.
Today I didn’t want to listen to Dan (who was only sharing my own advice with me), but honestly, it’s been the necessary information to hear. I have been sitting in my emotions a lot over the last few weeks, with clients, friendships, wedding and the cost of living increases, there’s a lot to consider. I’m sure you’ve been feeling it too.
Checking in with yourself before this happens is even better, so I would thoroughly recommend asking yourself these questions every month to ensure you’re on the right path for where you want to go.
And take the time to rest when you need it!!!
